The aim of this paper is to investigate the stability of one-dimensional bo
undary layers of parabolic systems as the viscosity goes to 0 in the noncha
racteristic case and, more precisely, to prove that spectral stability impl
ies linear and nonlinear stability of approximate solutions. In particular,
we replace the smallness condition obtained by the energy method [10, 13]
by a weaker spectral condition. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.