Ode to the Transistor

[Dreamlander]

While many of us love our machines, most of us have no clue how they work (as a computer engineering major, this pains me). The transistor is the most basic part of a computer: through transistors, we can create logic gates, and thus more complex digital logic structures. Placing these digital logic structures in a certain way allows us to create a general purpose microprocessor with its own instruction set. This video is a great explanation of how the transistor works, if you did not know how it worked before!

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrBqCFLHIY[/video]

 

[Selena]

Computer engineering? Interesting. How does that major differ from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science? Or is it the same thing? As a mechincal engineering major, I'm curious myself.

And yes, transistors and computers with their binary stuff. Very awesome to learn and teach.

 

[Dreamlander]

Computer engineering? Interesting.  How does that major differ from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science? Or is it the same thing?  As a mechincal engineering major, I'm curious myself.

And yes, transistors and computers with their binary stuff. Very awesome to learn and teach.

At my school, electrical engineering and computer engineering are in the same department (ECE) but different majors, while there is a computer science department in the College of Engineering and then there is also a computer science major within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, but the catch is that you have to major in CS plus some other thing, such as math or linguistics. Generally, electrical engineering has many branches that are not related to computing, such as power and energy systems, and EEs usually only have to take one intro programming class and that's it. CompE's such as myself learn more about EE as it pertains to computing (like semiconducting), and we also have to take a lot of coding classes that are not necessarily in the CS department (but some are). All CompE's for example are required to take a course where you basically create the Linux kernel from scratch. This course is offered by the ECE department and not the CS department, so I think only CompE's (or crazy EE's) take it. 

Computer science on the other hand is usually very software focused. You learn how to become a great programmer. While CompE's also have good programming skills, I think our skills are supposed to be directed more toward the hardware-software interface, and not for creating user programs. But this degree has a lot of freedom. If you want to be more CS, you can be that. If you want to be more EE, you can be that aswell.

And yeah. I have a couple MechE friends. Their homework does not look fun. It actually makes me want to code all night haha.

Our website probably does a better job of describing it than I ever could.

http://www.ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/curriculum/

 

[Selena]

So as a computer engineer, you're department is responsible for programming and assembling computer hardware, while EECS does the computer software? So that's why microchips are getting smaller by the hour.

And while our homework isn't that fun, I would rather do that over what the EECS people do all day, any day. I'm sorry, but programming is very frustrating, boring, and tedious, no offense. I love what I do, and I do what I love.

And for that, I'm happy there are people willing to do what others cannot.

 

[Dreamlander]

So as a computer engineer, you're department is responsible for programming and assembling computer hardware, while EECS does the computer software?  So that's why microchips are getting smaller by the hour.

And while our homework isn't that fun, I would rather do that over what the EECS people do all day, any day.  I'm sorry, but programming is very frustrating, boring, and tedious, no offense.  I love what I do, and I do what I love.

And for that, I'm happy there are people willing to do what others cannot.

I would say EE would be predominantly hardware plus non-computing fields, CompE a bit of both, and CS software. And yes, microchips are getting smaller, but this is driven by shrinking the size of the transistors that make up the chips. Actually, we're reaching the point where it's becoming increasingly harder and costlier to make them smaller. Eventually, we're going to reach a limit where it's going to be impossible to make them any smaller. IMO, this why I think it's extremely important for the industry and society in general to find an alternative to silicon. Graphene looks very promising, I believe a few years back a graphene transistor was clocked at 427 GHz. But graphene has problems due its atomic structure that make it very hard to work with. Hopefully, with enough research, we'll find something. If we can't, a lot of big tech companies will be in trouble, as there would really be no benefit in upgrading a phone/PC/whatever as the performance upgrades would be minimal.

And yes, coding can get very tedious. Especially if you're dealing with assembly language. :hypnotized:

 

[Selena]

I'm working with a program designed to analyze and compute linear algebra with ease. Horrible, but it's a dirty job I need to get done... For some reason.

And maybe the microchip industry is nearing its crescendo, but we have to make way for nanotechnology research. Elements change their properties upon conversion into a nanomaterial.

 

[Dreamlander]

I'm working with a program designed to analyze and compute linear algebra with ease.  Horrible, but it's a dirty job I need to get done... For some reason.

And maybe the microchip industry is nearing its crescendo, but we have to make way for nanotechnology research.  Elements change their properties upon conversion into a nanomaterial.

I'm hoping for a world in 50 years where nanobots in your bloodstream can clear out clogged arteries. No joke, my dad is around 60, and he's outlived his own dad, his grandpa, his great grandpa, and his great great grandpa (and possibly his great great great grandpa).