Wednesday, July 29, 2009

about CSys Department

Salam 3lykom W ra7mat Allah,
Here I will talk little about CSys department for whom want to join it or still thinking...

Simply, CSys is about the integration between programming and hardware, how computer systems are built and building computer networks.

Computer System : means a system contains Processor, some sort of memory and some peripherals built and programmed to do a specific task.

What task ?

Tasks are mainly control tasks like controlling a production line, controlling some motors doing some jobs, reading data from sensors in an environment and pass it to other equipments or taking decisions based on this data.

you may also build systems that utilize your PC to control other systems; you job here will be the interfacing between the PC and those equipments, how to control them, send data to them or read from.

What will you learn inside CSys department courses ?


First Semester :

1- Microprocessor-based Systems :
----> The proposed target for this course is to be able to design a computer system by choosing your microprocessor, your memory, your output devices, connecting them together and programming them to do some task. note: Try to reach this target by your self if your instructor didnt help you to do so.
  • you will study the architecture of the micropreocessor (internal registers, buses, interrupts, direct memory access (DMA),
  • how to interface a microprocessor with memory
  • how interface a microprocessor with input/output devices
  • how to program the microprocessor ( in assembly)
In Lab: you will see the hardware componnets and learn how to connect them

2- Computer Networks
you will learn the basic of computer networks, how to build a computer network and programming application to work over network (say chat application)

In Lab
:you will study the CCNA certificate topics which include how to build and configure a small - to - medium computer network.by the way , it isn't just connecting the cables and configuring the pc ip address, there are many and many to do in network.

3-Digital Signal Processing
you will study Signals from the mathematics prospective. signals are functions having some paramters and by changing the parameters you may affect the signal and so doing the magic with just a few numbers. note : Try to have this point in your mind as you may not feel it during the course lectures.

In Lab
: you will study practical examples for applying this mathematics and will solve some problems.
one project we made was Sound and Image effects Package.you choose image and apply effects on it also the sound (echo - multi echo ... etc.) and it was very interesting .

4- Data Communcation

you will study how data are tansmitted via a medium. what are these mediums, how data are encoded and decoded to be transmitted and how to control the transmission errors.

In Lab
: you will solve some problems from the subject book.

5- Selected Topic: (High Performance Computing - HPC)
Imagine if you have a computationaly intensive problem (problem with huge number of computaions required) , If you tried to solve it using your PC , it may take days.How to overcome this problem by studying the concept of parallel computing is the target of this course.
Course link here

In Lab:
you will study how to program a parallel application in c++ using a library called MPI-CH. This targets the following: if you have a problem and want to solve it in parallel then you designed its parallel solution and want to prgram it .. how to write the code utilizing this library (MPI-CH)
Also there was an interesting project for designing and implemeting a real hardware circuit for 1-bit pattern matching (you will learn about it in the course) but we designed the circuit in a software called Eagle and made its PCB (printed circuit board) like this and this , you will learn how to make a circuit like this and will make it in shaa Allah.

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Second Term:

1- Embedded Systems
---> in Microprocessor-based system, you will not have the chance to build a real system or even see or know about. here in Embedded System, it's totally diffrent. You have a real systems, have a real component, programming a real Microcontroller and see actual runing systems.
read this post to know what's an embedded system

Topics:
- Microcontroller concepts and Archittecture (microcontroller is a simple processor with memory and i/o pins included in the same chip).you will study the 8051 microcontroller
- Interface this microcontroller with LCDs , Motors , sensors ..etc
Complete Lab Syllabus here and projects you can make in this course here and other projects here

2- Computer Peripherals
interesting easy subject teaches you how to interface your pc with the outside world.

Topics:
- Parallel Port Interfacing ( means how to use your PC parallel port to control some device such as a lamp or motor ) . you can see here a description for parallel port and here a project build using parallel port

- Serial Port Interfacing
- USB interfacing (not in deep)
- Interfacing motors and LCDs using these ports

ther is also a project here utilizing the serial port

In Lab:
you may apply this concepts and make a real implemetation utilizing the usage of this ports like controlling LCD from parallel port or moving a motor.

3- Parallel Architecture
beside the topics of the high perfomance computing in the first term add to them the study of the architecture of parallel machines and parallel search and graph algorithms.
Course Link here

In Lab: you will study many things
1- VHDL
2- MPI again
3- some Computer Vision concepts

4- Computer Security
studying the Encryption and Decryption techniques used to encrypt/decrypt data during their transmission. you will study and implement this techniques in the course
In Lab : solving some problems of the book and explaining some others

5-Selected Topics
some different copmanies teach us some new technologies and tools to make you little close to the market. This offer is by the ITI

Just Choose the department you like and want to study its subjects.

4 comments:

Pansy Arafa said...

Thanks,gazak ALLAH 7'airan for that useful post
What I'm sure about is that the problem of Csys is that it's similar to Computer Engineering,while Computer Engineer has more Hardware experience,and here is the question: what will be the Track after college Software or Hardware?!
And Thanks again

Mohammed Saudi said...

That is true but can be fixed with some extra work.
after college you will be able to work in software and programming the hardware (e.g. writting software for embedded systems). But if you want to work in the hardware field,that needs extra work to be done such as learning more about Electronics and hardware design.
and by the way, when we say hardware it is a big field and have many branches like designing the circuits (analog or digital, microprocessor or microcontroller based, pcb design process ...etc.
have a nice choice.

Salma said...

I just want to know if i worked in hardware field how it will be and the best books could i read to be ready for next year...thanks

Mohammed Saudi said...

Check the Csys category Post Salma