Incorporating electronics in the architecture track of computer science, a comparative study

Abstract

The latest draft report of the ACM/IEEE Joint Task Force on computer science makes several recommendations. Of these, for computer architecture: a) a shift towards more use of Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), and b) more emphasis on the study of power constraints. While the shift towards use of PLDs requires minimal electrical knowledge, the study of power constraints requires better understanding of the electrical topics. With further constraints placed on the number of credit hours, detailed study the electrical topics may be skipped. The contribution of the paper is to propose a set of electrical topics compiled so as to include under curricula constraints and offer pedagogy of teaching the topics. In addition, the paper presents a comparative study of the electronics topics found in digital design texts.