This is a list of the individual topics in Electronics, Mathematics, and Integrated Circuits that together make up the Computer Engineering field. The organization is by topic to create an effective Study Guide for this field. The contents match the full body of topics and detail information expected of a person identifying themselves as a Computer Engineering expert as laid out by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. It is a comprehensive list and superset of the computer engineering topics generally dealt with at any one time.
Part 1 - Basics
Character Encoding
Character (computing) Universal Character Set IEEE 1394 ASCIIMath
Bitwise operation Signed number representations IEEE floating point Operators in C and C++ De Morgan's laws Booth's multiplication algorithm Binary multiplier Wallace tree Dadda multiplier Multiply–accumulate operation Big O notation Euler's identityBasic Electronics
Series and parallel circuits RLC circuit Transistor Operational amplifier applicationsSignal Processing
Signal processing Digital filter Fast Fourier transform Cooley–Tukey FFT algorithm Modified discrete cosine transform Digital signal processing Analog-to-digital converterError Detection/Correction
Parity bit Error detection and correction Cyclic redundancy check Hamming code Hamming(7,4) Convolutional code Forward error correction Noisy-channel coding theorem Modulation Signal-to-noise ratio Linear code Noise (electronics)Part 2 - Hardware
Hardware
Logic family Multi-level cell Flip-flop (electronics) Race condition Binary decision diagram Circuit minimization for Boolean functions Karnaugh map Quine–McCluskey algorithm Integrated circuit designProgrammable Logic
Standard cell Programmable logic device Field-programmable gate array Complex programmable logic device Application-specific integrated circuit Logic optimization Register-transfer level Floorplan (microelectronics) Hardware description language VHDL Verilog Electronic design automation Espresso heuristic logic minimizer Routing (electronic design automation) Static timing analysis Placement (EDA) Power optimization (EDA) Timing closure Design flow (EDA) Design closure Rent's ruleAssembly/Test
Design rule checking SystemVerilog In-circuit test Joint Test Action Group Boundary scan Boundary scan description language Test bench Ball grid array Head in pillow (metallurgy) Pad cratering Land grid arrayProcessors
Computer architecture Harvard architecture Processor design Central processing unit Microcode Arithmetic logic unit CPU cache Instruction set Orthogonal instruction set Classic RISC pipeline Reduced instruction set computing Instruction-level parallelism Instruction pipeline Hazard (computer architecture) Bubble (computing) Superscalar Parallel computing Dynamic priority scheduling Amdahl's law Benchmark (computing) Moore's law Computer performance Supercomputer SIMD Multi-core processor Explicitly parallel instruction computing Simultaneous multithreadingRedundancy & Reliability
Dependability Active redundancy Dual modular redundancy Triple modular redundancy High-availability Seamless Redundancy N-version programming RAID Fault tolerance Fault-tolerant computer system Watchdog timer Redundant array of independent memoryMemory
Computer data storage Memory controller Memory management unit Static random-access memory Dynamic random-access memory Synchronous dynamic random-access memory DDR2 SDRAM Flash memory Memory scrubbing Data striping Hard disk drive performance characteristics Disk sectorPart 3 - OS, Software, Testing, AI
Operating Systems
Operating system Multiprocessing Concurrent computing Computer cluster Distributed computing Trusted computing base Embedded system In-circuit emulator Real-time operating system Comparison of real-time operating systems Rate-monotonic scheduling Earliest deadline first scheduling Least slack time scheduling Deadline-monotonic scheduling Round-robin scheduling O(1) scheduler Thread (computing) Concurrency control Synchronization (computer science) Mutual exclusion Device driverSoftware Development
Software development process Software requirements specification Spiral model Agile software development Behavior-driven development Cowboy coding Lean software development Extreme programming Structured systems analysis and design method List of software development philosophies Programming language generations Comparison of programming languages Printf format string Programming paradigm Object-oriented design Software documentation Software design document Object-oriented programming Concurrent Versions System Software maintenance Revision control Software configuration management Software release life cycle MIL-STD-498 Software assurance Systems development life cycle Software quality Software quality management Relational database ACID List of data structures Semipredicate problem Application Interface Specification Homoiconicity Domain-specific modeling Unified Modeling LanguageTest/Integration
Software testing Test-driven development Acceptance test-driven development Integration testing Software walkthrough Code review Software inspection Software verification Functional testing Software testing White-box testing Black-box testing Gray box testing Verification and validation (software) Correctness (computer science)AI & Robotics
Speech processing Image processing Computer vision Robotics Speech recognitionPart 4 - Information Theory, Encryption, Networking, and Security
Information Theory
Information theory Channel capacity Shannon–Hartley theorem Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem Shannon's source coding theorem Zero-order hold Data compression Modulation order Phase-shift keyingEncryption
Hash function List of hash functions String searching algorithm Avalanche effect Rabin–Karp algorithm Burst error-correcting code Cryptography Cryptographic hash function Public-key cryptography Viterbi algorithmNetworking
Computer network List of network buses Wide area network Local area network Network science Non-return-to-zero Manchester code Ethernet Internet OSI model Transmission Control Protocol Point-to-Point Protocol Exposed node problem Circuit switching Fiber-optic communication Capacity management Bandwidth management Bandwidth (computing) Throughput Networking hardware Wireless network IEEE 802.11 Complementary code keying Session Initiation Protocol Message authentication code Port Control Protocol Network monitoring Simple Network Management Protocol Measuring network throughput Reliability (computer networking) Channel access method Time division multiple accessSecurity
Computer security Separation of protection and security Information security Information security management system Internet security Hacker (computer security) DMZ (computing) Firewall (computing) Stateful firewall Intrusion detection system Denial-of-service attack IP address spoofingPart 5 - Misc
Multiple-criteria decision analysisReferences
"NCEES PE Electrical and Computer Exam Specifications(note: requires updating every 6 months)" (PDF). National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/FINAL_PE-Electrical_Computer_Oct_2025.pdf ↩