VoCable Electronics Seminar Topics

Voice (and fax) service over cable networks is known as cable-based Internet Protocol (IP) telephony. Cable based IP telephony holds the promise of simplified and consolidated communication services provided by a single carrier at a lower cost than consumers currently to pay to separate Internet, television and telephony service providers. Cable operators have already worked through the technical challenges of providing Internet service and optimizing the existing bandwidth in their cable plants to deliver high speed Internet access. Now, cable operators have turned their efforts to the delivery of integrated Internet and voice service using that same cable spectrum.Cable based IP telephony falls under the broad umbrella of voice over IP (VoIP), meaning that many of the challenges that telecom carriers facing cable operators are the same challenges that telecom carriers face as they work to deliver voice over ATM (VoATM) and frame-relay networks. However, ATM and frame-relay services are targeted primarily at the enterprise, a decision driven by economics and the need for service providers to recoup their initial investments in a reasonable amount of time. Cable, on the other hand, is targeted primarily at home. Unlike most businesses, the overwhelming majority of homes in the United States is passed by cable, reducing the required up-front infrastructure investment significantly. Cable is not without competition in the consumer market, for digital subscriber line (xDSL) has emerged as the leading alternative to broadband cable.

Optic Fibre Cable

Optical fiber (or "fiber optic") refers to the medium and the technology associated with the transmission of information as light pulses along a glass or plastic wire or fiber. Optical fiber carries much more information than conventional copper wire and is in general not subject to electromagnetic interference and the need to retransmit signals. Most telephone company long-distance lines are now of optical fiber. Transmission on optical fiber wire requires repeaters at distance intervals. The glass fiber requires more protection within an outer cable than copper. For these reasons and because the installation of any new wiring is labor-intensive, few communities yet have optical fiber wires or cables from the phone company's branch office to local customers (known as local loops). Optical fiber consists of a core, cladding, and a protective outer coating, which guide light along the core by total internal reflection. The core, and the higher-refractive-index cladding, are typically made of high-quality silica glass, though they can both be made of plastic as well. An optical fiber can break if bent too sharply. Due to the microscopic precision required to align the fiber cores, connecting two optical fibers, whether done by fusion splicing or mechanical splicing, requires special skills and interconnection technology.Two main categories of optical fiber used in fiber optic communications are multi-mode optical fiber and single-mode optical fiber. Multimode fiber has a larger core allowing less precise, cheaper transmitters and receivers to connect to it as well as cheaper connectors

VLSI Computations

Over the past four decades the computer industry has experienced four generations of development, physically marked by the rapid changing of building blocks from relays and vacuum tubes (1940-1950s) to discrete diodes and transistors (1950-1960s), to small- and medium-scale integrated (SSI/MSI) circuits (1960-1970s), and to large- and very-large-scale integrated (LSI/VLSI) devices (1970s and beyond). Increases in device speed and reliability and reductions in hardware cost and physical size have greatly enhanced computer performance. However, better devices are not the sole factor contributing to high performance. Ever since the stored-program concept of von Neumann, the computer has been recognized as more than just a hardware organization problem. A modern computer system is really a composite of such items as processors, memories, functional units, interconnection networks, compilers, operating systems, peripherals devices, communication channels, and database banks.To design a powerful and cost-effective computer system and to devise efficient programs to solve a computational problem, one must understand the underlying hardware and software system structures and the computing algorithm to be implemented on the machine with some user-oriented programming languages. These disciplines constitute the technical scope of computer architecture. Computer architecture is really a system concept integrating hardware, software algorithms, and languages to perform large computations. A good computer architect should master all these disciplines.

Digital Subscriber Line(EC seminar topics)

The accelerated growth of content-rich applications that demand high bandwidth has changed the nature of information networks. High-speed communication is now an ordinary requirement throughout business, government, academic, and "work-at-home" environments. High-speed Internet access, telecommuting, and remote LAN access are three services that network access providers clearly must offer. These rapidly growing applications are placing a new level of demand on the telephone infrastructure, in particular, the local loop portion of the network (i.e., the local connection from the subscriber to the local central office). The local loop facility is provisioned with copper cabling,which cannot easily support high bandwidth transmission. This environment is now being stressed by the demand for increasingly higher bandwidth capacities. Although this infrastructure could be replaced by a massive rollout of fiber technologies, the cost to do so is prohibitive in today's business models.More importantly, the time to accomplish such a transition is unacceptable, because the market demand exists today!This demand for data services has created a significant market opportunity for providers that are willing and able to invest in technologies that maximize the copper infrastructure. Both incumbent and competitive Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs and CLECs) are capitalizing on this opportunity by embracing such technologies. The mass deployment of high-speed Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) has changed the playing field for service providers. DSL, which encompasses several different technologies, essentially allows the extension of megabit bandwidth capacities from the service provider central office to the customer premises. Utilizing existing copper cabling, DSL is available at very reasonable costs without the need for massive infrastructure replacement.

Heliodisplay(EC seminar topics)

he heliodisplay is an interactive planar display. Though the image it projects appears much like a hologram, its inventors claim that it doesn't use holographic technology, though it does use rear projection (not lasers as originally reported) to project its image. It does not require any screen or substrate other than air to project its image, but it does eject a water-based vapour curtain for the image to be projected upon. The curtain is produced using similar ultrasonic technology as used in foggers and comprises a number of columns of fog. This curtain is sandwiched between curtains of clean air to create an acceptable screen.Heliodisplay moves through a dozen metal plates and then comes out again. (The exact details of its workings are unknown, pending patent applications.) It works as a kind of floating touch screen, making it possible to manipulate images projected in air with your fingers, and can be connected to a computer using a standard VGA connection. It can also connect with a TV or DVD by a standard RGB video cable. Though due to the turbulent nature of the curtain, not currently suitable as a workstation.The Heliodisplay is an invention by Chad Dyner, who built it as a 5-inch prototype in his apartment before founding IO2 technologies to further develop the product.