Abstract: The disclosed invention provides for power reduction of electronic building blocks based on the activity of analog signals, or analog signals that have been digitized by a analog-to-digital signal. In some implementations, an event detection engine classifies whether an event has occurred in the signal at a particular time, based on amplitude, frequency, patterns, and/or statistical information. Such information on the signal can be set by the designer of the electronic system, or it could be autonomously set by a central unit, such as a processor. By analyzing and detecting events within the signal based on multi-dimensional parameters, the other building blocks, such as a processor or radio or analog front end, can be put in low power sleep mode much longer compared to traditional methods.