EE Course Descriptions..***?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Since I started going to community college I've been researching the different engineering fields. Every time I attempt to wrap my mind around a given university's electrical engineering curriculum, though, I go cross eyed, and resort to wikipidiing/googling key phrases found on their websites. This often leads me to roughly 2-3 additional unknown technical phrases I must additionally research in order to understand the former, and so continues the cycle. It must end!</p>

<p>Can anyone clue me in here? What do these different branches of study in electrical engineering mean? UCLA, for example, lists 3 main branches of study:</p>

<p>(1) Circuits and Embedded Systems
(2) Physical and Wave Electronics
(3) Signals and Systems</p>

<p>along with several possible elective branches:</p>

<p>Antennas and Microwaves
Integrated Circuits
Microelectromechanical Systems
Photonics and Plasma Electronics
Signals and Systems
Solid State</p>

<p>What does it all mean?</p>

<p>Does integrated circuits mean you'll learn about computer chips? I'm not even going to guess at photonics/plasma electronics. Signals and systems = controlling/powering things with electricity? Solid state = things that change but don't "move" with electricity? What kind of work do these lead into?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>Electrical engineering is a very broad major, just as almost any other major is. Most EE’s will focus on a specialized field in their major, in the same way that someone might focus on Asian history for a history major. </p>

<p>Please keep in mind that these are very general descriptions.</p>

<p>1) Circuits and Embedded Systems - almost any electronic device around you might be an embedded system. This could be your irrigation controller to turn on your sprinklers, or your car alarm. </p>

<p>2) Physical and Wave Electronics - I am not really familiar with this branch, but after looking at UCLA’s website it sounds like this can be almost anything that deals with waves, such as lasers, bio-medical devices, nano-structures, communication, etc.</p>

<p>3) Signals and Systems - Any subject that deals communication, such as satellites, radio modules, probability & stochastic processes, microwaves, etc. </p>

<p>Antennas and Microwaves are just that. The study of antennas and microwaves properties, such as length (antenna), propagation, frequency, etc. </p>

<p>Integrated Circuits is just an electronic device that is made out of a semiconductor. You have probably heard the term “IC chip.” </p>

<p>Microelectromechanical Systems are also known as MEMS. They are usually microscopic and consist of a microprocessor, data storage, sensors, etc. The Nintendo Wii uses them in the controllers.</p>

<p>Photonics and Plasma Electronics mainly deals with lasers. </p>

<p>Solid State gets its name from how it works. Flash memory, such as what you have in your camera is solid state. This simply means that if you turn it off and back on nothing is lost. Solid state hard-drives act in the same way, but with one additional benefit. Typical hard-drives use discs that spin and use a tiny needle to read and write data, in the same way that a record player plays music. What happens if you bump the record player? You scratch the record, which is sort of what you can do to the hard-drive if you hit it too hard. In solid state drives there are no moving parts, ie it is solid. So you can drop the hard-drive while it is still running, and assuming you don’t break the case the drive should still work. </p>

<p>Hope this helps you, and hopefully more people will chime in and provide better details in some of the subjects for you.</p>

3

<p>Yeah it’s pretty confusing. I may not even have it right (I’ve only studied EE for 2 years) I think a good thing to think about is that EE is chock full of abstractions. If that doesn’t make sense, let me explain. (warning: long post ahead) </p>

<p>A computer is an incredibly complicated system. In the end it is made up of millions of transistors (these are electrical devices that act like switches, only instead of being controlled by a flick of your finger they are controlled by an electrical current). Thinking about the transistors when you are trying to design the next microprocessor won’t get you very far though. Having to account for each transistor is a pain. It’s like trying to build a sandcastle by placing each grain one by one.</p>

<p>So the thing to do is to make small circuits out of these transistors that do something useful. Then the person who wants to design a computer can focus more on the higher levels of the design and not worry so much about details. </p>

<p>It turns out that having to figure out the physics and optimal layout of these circuits is a pain too when you are trying to design the pentium 500. So a lot of the time, the engineers that design these processors totally ignore all the electricity aspects of the circuits and think a little more abstractly about how data gets transported throughout the chip. They let other engineers worry about how to physically make the chips. </p>

<p>This is a common theme in electrical engineering. Creating abstractions so that you can design complicated things without losing your mind. The different concentrations in EE play different roles in realizing an electrical system, operating at different levels of abstraction. </p>

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<p>These are the guys that design the transistors (and lots of other stuff like antennas, lasers). Their goal is to exploit physics to create devices useful for circuits.</p>

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<p>These guys create circuits with the devices the first guys made.</p>

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<p>These guys kind of have the big picture in mind. They describe what they want the circuits to do and work with engineers that know a little bit more about circuits to build what they want.</p>

<p>This is a rough sketch of EE. I probably messed up some details, but I think the big picture is there.</p>

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<p>SRAM is solid-state, but if you turn off the power, it loses its bits. </p>

<p>Solid-state electronic components, devices, and systems are based entirely on the semiconductor, … , there is no dependency in the electrical properties of a vacuum and no mechanical action, no moving parts, although a considerable amount of electromagnetic and quantum-mechanical action takes place within. – wikipedia</p>

<p>oh yeah, if I mess something up, please correct me as well.</p>

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<p>Yeah. It ranges from applied physics with the electronics/photonics classes to applied math with the communications/signal processing/control theory (signals and systems) classes.</p>

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<p>Non-volatile means it retains data when power is not applied.</p>

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<p>(1) Circuits and Embedded Systems - Standard analog and digital circuits. Embedded systems are very, very small computers attached to various sensors, displays, and actuators. For example, home alarm systems are embedded systems (a central “computer” with various sensors attached to it).</p>

<p>(2) Physical and Wave Electronics - Light and radio frequency systems. Light most likely covers lasers and fiber optic systems. Radio frequency systems involves antenna design, radar, GPS, and other associated electronics (amplifiers, oscillators, etc).</p>

<p>(3) Signals and Systems - Signals is the study of the transmission of information. It is much more mathematics based. For example, how do cell phones make sure that everyone who makes a call at the same time using the same cell tower do not interfere with each other even though they are all on basically the same frequency?</p>

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<p>Thanks silence_kit, I forgot about SRAM and the actual definition of solid state. I should know this. I’m just used to explaining with a generic description of what solid state means since family and friends keep seeing it on the netbook descriptions and such.</p>

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<p>Great responses!</p>

9

<p>(1) Circuits and Embedded Systems</p>

<p>This is circuity. You will learn about analog and digital circuits, and apply it to everywhere electricity is used (like radios or cell phones).</p>

<p>(2) Physical and Wave Electronics</p>

<p>This is physicsy. You will learn quantum mechanics and electromagnetics, and apply it to fundamental electronic devices (like transistors or lasers).</p>

<p>(3) Signals and Systems</p>

<p>This is mathy. You will learn fourier transforms and math stuff, and apply it to communications and signal processing systems (like internet or cell phone data).</p>

<p>(I think.)</p>

10

<p>I graduated with a BS EE 2 years ago.</p>

<p>(1) Circuits and Embedded Systems
Basic circuitry (with circuit labs). potentially semiconductors (given the embedded part)
(2) Physical and Wave Electronics
electromagnetics (and potentially optics as they are slightly similar)
(3) Signals and Systems
Digital signal processing (complex algebra) and fourier systems/controls</p>

<p>along with several possible elective branches:</p>

<p>Antennas and Microwaves

  • Speaks for itself (basically waves)
    Integrated Circuits
  • advanced circuits and semiconductors
    Microelectromechanical Systems
  • robotics
    Photonics and Plasma Electronics
  • unknown but definately optics
    Signals and Systems
  • advanced signal processing
    Solid State
  • solid state electronics</p>
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<p>Lol. Very enlightening descriptions masterhuh. I am especially fond of this one:</p>

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12

<p>Is there one EE sub-specialty that’s by far more popular/in-demand than the others?</p>

<p>I want to major in EE but my school lists like 10 sub-specialties from electronics to control systems to power to computer engineering…</p>

<p>If it matters, my career aspiration is in biomedical instrumentation.</p>

13

<p><a href=“1”>quote</a> Circuits and Embedded Systems
Basic circuitry (with circuit labs). potentially semiconductors (given the embedded part)
(2) Physical and Wave Electronics
electromagnetics (and potentially optics as they are slightly similar)
(3) Signals and Systems
Digital signal processing (complex algebra) and fourier systems/controls

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<p>this explaination pretty much gets right down to some of the major topics you will be studying as an EE or Cmpe. You should google these key words to see what you will eventually get to in undergrad</p>