The traditional paradigm of design and validation of electronic systems is to fully and precisely specify a system, and then design, implement and verify it according to this specification. This paradigm has achieved operational systems with billions of transistors, wonderfully sophisticated functionality and with amazing precision. However, with the further increase in complexity, higher demands on adaptability, resilience and autonomy, and the deployment in less predictable and changing environments, alternative paradigms of design and operation are explored. Self-awareness describes the capability of a system to monitor its own state, its performance and its integrity. Equipped with an accurate assessment of its own situation it can identify aberrations for expectations which may be due to faulty hardware, ill designed software or malicious attacks.