COSC 3P92 Seminar Topics

Requirements

Your seminar should be brief and to the point. It should be 15 minutes, including 2-3 minutes for questions (these times may change). Please send me your Powerpoint slides, which I will put on the web.

Topics

The following is a non-exhaustive list of possible seminar topics. If you see one that interests you, let me know and I'll reserve it for you. Also, if you find a topic not on this list, let me know and I'll add it.

Topics already reserved are in coloured text.

Any topic chosen from these or others should stress hardware architecture perspectives, rather than the software aspects (although, naturally, both are interrelated).

• Microprocessors (past, present, future)
  • Motorola
  • AMD
  • Intel
  • Transmeta
  • Hitachi
  • Alpha
  • Alpha
  • Crusoe
  • XScale

• Other computer architectures, hardware
  • Logic gate design and fabrication
  • parallel
  • Beowulf
  • supercomputer
  • EEPROM
  • analog

• Bus
  • Firewire
  • SCSI and SATA
  • USB 2.0
  • Bluetooth
  • MBus (Sun)

• Future technologies
  • nanobots
  • Quantum computers
  • DNA computation
  • Evolution of computer architecture using genetic programming

• Other digital chips
  • Digital Signal Processing (DSP)
  • Photonic switches
  • High-performance memory
  • Flash memory

• Secondary storage
  • harddisks
  • removable: floppy, Zip, tapes
  • CD/R and CD/RW
  • DVD, Blu Ray
  • DVD/RW

• A specific example of the use of microprocessors or DSP's in a particular device or appliance.

• Portable computers
  • laptops
  • Palm pilot
  • Handheld PC
  • cell phones

• Benchmark standards for computers

• Video game systems
  • Nintendo Wii
  • Nintendo DS
  • Sony Playstation 3
  • Xbox

• Graphics and multimedia
  • 3D graphics chips and cards
    • ATI Radeon
    • Nvidia Geforce
    • OpenGL hardware
  • Controllers
    • mouse: conventional, 3D
    • trackballs
    • joysticks
    • Virtual reality devices: helmets, suits,...
  • PC soundcard technology:
    • wave sampling
    • sound synthesis
  • Digital audio technology
    • digital audio recording and playback
    • synthesizers
    • samplers
    • MIDI controllers
    • audio CD's (red book)
    • MP3 audio chips
  • Digital television
    • DVD
    • Mpeg-2 hardware decoding
    • HDTV
  • Monitor technology
    • flat-screen LCD
    • Plasma
  • Printing technology
    • laser printing
    • inkjet printing
    • colour printing
  • Graphics, imaging and animation
    • Digital photography and CCD's
    • motion capture hardware: 'monkey', suits/sensors
    • graphics tablets
    • post-production: animation recording hardware, video toasters
    • 3D printers

• Communication
  • global positioning systems (GPS)
  • cell phones
  • fiber optics
  • network controller cards

• ???

COSC home page COSC 3P92 Home Search COSC pages

URL: http://www.cosc.brocku.ca/Offerings/3P92/topics.html
Revised: 01/07/09