Thursday, December 2, 2010

Slides for 2 Dec 2010 lecture

UPDATE: the revised slides I actually used are at the same link below. Not many changes.

Here is an outline of tomorrow's lecture. My first draft of the slides are here, 15Mb PDF. Given that it is the second-to-last day of classes, I suppose you can check these out and decide whether to come or not ;-) For you EE-types, a lot of this stuff (like the truth tables and logic gates) is either the familiar subject of your recurring nightmares, or it will be soon.

The outline, as of now:
  • basic computer architecture
  • memory 
    • reminder: how transistors work
    • FLASH memory
    • S/D/MRAM basics 
    • memory architecture
  • logic & computation
    • how to implement logic & computation
    • logic gates 
    • building gates from transistors/switches
    • computation example: comparison, addition
  • information physics
    • energy requirements & thermal stability
    • mechanical, electrical, and magnetic storage
    • losses per cycle
    • the safety of Moore's "law" and fundamental limits
  • Time permitting (probably not): hard disks
    • overview of operation
    • media (analogous to CD/vinyl)
    • reading & writing
    • positioning & mechanical
    • why magnets?
    • history & recent boom times
    • fundamental limits approaching
 No, this is not on the final.

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