Computer Hardware Engineering

[Dagenais]

So, I've heard that recently, the occupation of Electrical Engineers and Computer Hardware Engineers have been separated. Electrical Engineers that specialize in making computer hardware are called the latter.

I was just wondering if "Computer Hardware Engineers" still hold Electrical Engineering degrees, or something different? Do they study something else after?

Sorry for the spelling mistakes, my computer is really slowing down here and I didn't bother to check.

[Moni]

I was just wondering if "Computer Hardware Engineers" still hold Electrical Engineering degrees, or something different? Do they study something else after?


Yes! They study.

[Russ]

A computer systems engineer is going to know:
* Programming (especially in C and asm)
* Programmable logic
* Gate delay's
* Operating systems
* Device driver code
* Physics of semiconductors
* Microcomputer design
* Logic design
* High speed digital design

Whereas, a ee would know stuff like:
* RF
* High power designs
* analog systems

[Maxwell]

Well let me try to clarify the seperation between the two.

The two fields I believe you are talking about are Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering.

Computer Engineering does not only deal with computer hardware, but anything that is digital. Whereas an Electrical Engineer deals with analog systems. Anything with a microprocessor is usually in the realm of Computer Engineering. For example computers, cell phones, digital cameras, etc.

At my university, they are two seperate degrees with much overlap.

Electrical Engineers still take a bunch of programming classes, though not as much as Computer Engineers do.

As I said before, there is much overlap between the two disciplines.