The Computer Architecture + IoT program is designed for software developers that want to enrich their understanding of computing by learning about the design and assembly of computing components and devices. Knowing about how a computer works from its logic gates informs a software programmer about the code that they’re writing, giving deep significance to what happens between the running code and what the electrons do on the silicon.
Computer architecture is the study of the hardware-software boundary. Not quite electronics and not quite software engineering, computer architecture is the magic that allows us to harness the deterministic laws of physics and electricity and create computation.
Microcontrollers are small computers. They generally expose more of the hardware interface to users, and are typically used in embedded systems. Because of the raw and exposed design, microcontrollers can more readily be attached to commodity hardware components such as LEDs, infrared sensors, motion detectors, and all kinds of cool devices.