In this video, we're talking about what do computer engineers do?
And we're starting.
Right now.
Hey, 1% nation I'm Jake [inaudible]
should we be making in 2021 comment below computer engineers work in the intersection of electrical and electronics engineering with computer science, computer engineers are usually educated in electrical and electronics engineering, software design, and especially software hardware integration. Instead of, for example, only software like a computer science major or only electronics and electrical engineering.
Like the I triple E field hardware and software aspects of the career include
designing microcontrollers, microprocessors, personal computers,
supercomputers, and circuit design,
computer engineers focused not only on how the computer systems work themselves,
but the integration of their work into the bigger technological landscape in the
world. Now let's talk about computer engineering tasks.
Computer engineers may work on various tasks and this can include writing
software and firmware for embedded microcontrollers designing,
very large scale integration chips, designing analog sensors,
mixed signals, circuit boards, and designing operating systems.
Computer engineers are also suited for robotics research.
Most of you are interested in this. Get so many questions about robotics,
which relies heavily on using digital systems to control and monitor electrical
systems like motors, communications, and sensors.
All engineering disciplines are quite broad and you have sub fields and
sub-disciplines within the major computer engineering may be more vast than
others.
And so it's not uncommon to go incredibly in-depth within computer engineering
with whatever niche that you choose.
We'll talk about the sub fields later in this video.
But first I think it's very important to talk about the history of each
engineering type.
We do this in every video and computer engineering's history is very
interesting.
Understanding the history also helps you understand that really computer
engineering is a deep aspect within electrical engineering.
I really do believe that in fact,
many programs offer electrical and computer engineering together.
I've had multiple friends at different universities,
be able to take only a few extra classes and be able to walk away with a double
major in electrical and computer engineering.
I'm not suggesting that that's important, or you should do that,
but I'm making an example of how close the fields are.
When you look at the history here, it also is revealing of this.
The first computer was developed in 1939 by a physics and math professor at Iowa
state college. Now I will state university named John Vincent,
a tennis off and his former graduate Clifford Berry,
both men were electrical engineering undergraduates and had master's degrees in
math and physics, respectively, and professor a tennis off,
got his PhD in theoretical physics. They call the computer, the ABC,
the tennis soft Berry computer,
which is very cool that the professor would include his former student in the
naming of that computer and give him credit and authority for the rest of his
career. It took five years to complete this computer. And nearly 60 years later,
a replica of the ABC was constructed and it took an entire team of engineers
four years and $350,000 to complete this.
If you reverse calculate for inflation,
that means it would have been $6.4 million of expenses to build this computer in
1939.
It's unbelievable that these two were able to do this fast forward into the
computer engineering industry and transistors were best in 1947 integrated
circuits in 1959.
And the larger breakthroughs didn't emerge until the 1970s when semiconductor
technology was on the rise.
And also the single chip microprocessor was developed by Intel in 1971. Okay.
Okay. With that brief history,
I want to point out that there's two distinct roles branches within computer
engineering.
You have computer hardware engineering and computer software engineering,
71,000 computer hardware engineers in America,
which shows that it's a really decent size field. And as you know,
our world is moving forward much faster in the software environments than in the
hardware environments. And if you go ahead and take a look,
software development industry,
there's 1.4 million people in America working within that industry,
not all of them are engineers.
Not all of them are four year computer scientists or data scientists or software
engineers,
but there are so many more opportunities and positions on the software side than
in the hardware side for computer engineering.
This shows you that even if you are in love with the hardware side and you want
to work with circuitry design and microprocessors,
you absolutely need to be interested in and want to have a career that's
embedded within software development, or you will get left behind.
So make sure you understand that if you're far more into hardware,
mechanical engineering could be the way for you or mechatronics engineering that
uses more of an integration between mechanical and electrical.
We have videos and what do mechanical,
what do electrical and what do you make a tronics engineers do?
Make sure you check those out as well. All right,
let's move on into the various sub fields within computer engineering.
So you can understand which niche you should go down and become an expert in one
of these subdisciplines. The first is processor design.
First is our design involves choosing an instruction set and a certain execution
paradigm and results in a micro architecture CPU design is divided into
design of the following components, data paths, control units,
memory components, such as register files, caches clock circuitry,
such as clock drivers, and so on coding cryptology and information protection.
And these engineers develop new methods.
It's for protecting various information such as digital images, music,
fragmentation, copyright infringement, and other copyright orange mint,
and other forms of tampering, communications and wireless networks.
Are these engineers work on advancements in telecommunication systems and
networks, especially wireless networks,
modular and Eric control coding and information theory,
high-speed network interface, suppression, and modulation design,
and analysis of fault tolerance systems and storage and transmission schemes are
also a part of this speciality compilers and operating systems engineers in this
field develop new operating system architecture,
program analysis techniques and new techniques to assure quality computational
science and engineering computational methods are applied to formulate and solve
complex mathematical problems in engineering in the physical and social
sciences. Examples include aircraft design,
the plasma processing of anatomy or features on semiconductor wafers,
circuit design, radar detection systems, and more computer networks,
mobile computing and distributed systems engineers built integrated garments for
computing communications and information access.
Examples include shared channel wireless networks,
adaptive resource management and various systems and improving the quality of
service in mobile and ATM environments, computer systems,
which includes architecture, computer processing, and dependability.
This includes research projects that allow for reliable, secure,
and high performance computer systems,
projects such as designing processors for multithreaded and parallel processing
are included in this field.
Other examples of work in this field include the development of new theories,
algorithms and other tools that add performance to computer systems,
computer vision, and robotics. In this speciality computer engineers,
focus on developing visual sensing technology to sense an environment,
representation of an environment and a manipulation of that environment.
The gathered three-dimensional information is then implemented to perform a
variety of tasks. These include improve human modeling, image, communication,
and human computer interfaces,
as well as devices such as special purpose cameras with versatile vision
sensors, embedded systems, individuals working in this area,
design technology for enhancing the speed,
reliability and performance of systems embedded systems are found in many
devices, such as small FM radios to space shuttles,
ongoing developments and embedded systems include automated vehicles and
equipment to conduct research and rescue automated transportation systems and
human robot coordination to repair equipment in space, integrated circuits,
very large system integration, design testing,
and computer-aided drafting engineers working in this area,
working on and enhancing the speed,
reliability and energy efficiency of next generation.
Very large scale integrated systems, systems, circuits, and Microsystems.
And example of this speciality is worked on, on reducing the power consumption,
a very large system integration algorithms and architecture signal image,
and speech processing. These engineers. Yeah,
develop improvements in human computer interaction,
including speech recognition and synthesis,
medical and scientific imaging or communication systems.
Other work in this area includes computer vision such as human facial
recognition systems, the last field,
and maybe even the one with the most exciting future is quantum computing.
Quantum computing involves people working with quantum phenomenon,
such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation.
Quantum engineers work on quantum computers,
which are believed to be able to solve computational problems such as integer
factorization,
which includes RSA encryption substantially faster than classic
computers.
The study of quantum computing is a sub field of quantum information science.
Oh right now that you understand those 12 sub fields within computer
engineering,
let's talk really quickly about the work environment for computer engineers,
computer engineers, like most engineering roles.
It's considered a white collar job where you may work in a typical welded office
with comfortable surroundings or in a computer laboratory.
If you're on the hardware side,
you may be on more of the testing and implementation of systems. But again,
most engineers who get a four-year degree and go into an industry,
go into a corporate engineering, will work in an office.
And it's a pretty typical environment. Finally,
let's talk about the professional engineer.
Only 34 engineers sat for the computer engineering professional engineering
exam last fall in 2019.
And they're moving the computer engineering exam to now just once a year,
because essentially no one takes it.
I was doing a review of the website that shows how many people sit for the exam
every six months. And unless you're a civil engineer,
unless you're working in power and unless you're working in HVAC for mechanical
engineering,
basically there's only a few people in every single engineering discipline who
get the PE.
And that's probably because they just want the letters behind their names so
they can move up in management and be a leader.
And it's more of a credential than giving them some sort of design authority or
career options.
So you can take the FP as a computer engineer and your undergraduate,
which is the eight hour fundamentals of engineering exam,
but you don't really have to comment below if you want to be a computer
engineer.
If you're having trouble between computer electrical and computer science.
I see this dilemma quite a bit online. Thanks for watching the video guys.
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