The position of computer hardware engineer can be of interest if you’re seeking work in the field of computer engineering. A computer engineer has a technical understanding of computer software and hardware structure and is responsible for improving the performance of computer systems. Preparation for the interview is essential to boost your chances of being recruited. We’ll look at some of the most often asked computer architecture interview questions and their respective answers throughout this post.
1. Why Are You Interested In This Role?
I put myself through a series of tests in both hardware and software before concluding that I am a “hardware whisperer.” My technical abilities have always been focused on the physical aspects of technology. When I go down in the trenches and get my hands dirty, I am at my finest. That is one of the reasons why I chose this as a profession. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to work for a large corporation like yours, where I can advance my career by dealing with complicated problems and finding innovative solutions using cutting-edge technology. Being employed by you will consequently be a dream come true for me.
2. What Are The Roles Of A Computer Engineer?
In addition to designing computer hardware and testing it to ensure that it is functioning properly, identifying defects, designing and testing circuits and other electronic components, and assessing safety, reliability, and cost factors are some of the primary responsibilities of a hardware engineer. Supervisory responsibilities include managing technicians, assessing information, suggesting appropriate hardware to users, and designing prototypes. In addition, computer hardware engineers perform their everyday tasks as part of a team, and they may be required to serve as team leaders. Finally, when diagnosing a client’s computer system, they speak with the customer.
3. What Is An Architectural Risk, And How Can You Reduce Your Exposure?
An architectural risk is the probability that an architectural design will fail to meet the specifications of a project’s requirements. Design flaws and inefficiencies that were not allowed by the sponsor are examples of failure. I would mitigate architectural risks by ensuring that requirements are captured correctly to avoid design defects and by using standard and widely acknowledged software design techniques, among other things.
4. What Are The Qualities That A Computer Engineer Needs To Be Successful?
A computer engineer must be capable of troubleshooting, analyzing, and problem-solving. Creativity is extremely beneficial to computer engineers because it allows them to improve on existing computers and suggest alternative methods and formats for various information technology applications. A computer engineer’s suggestion may often not be the method used by a team. Resilience is important for computer engineers because it allows them to develop great ideas even when facing setbacks. A computer engineer must also be able to work independently and as part of a team and be detail-oriented.
5. What Challenges Do You Face While Performing Pcb Design?
The first step in PCB design is to create the schematics. Even tools or plugins allow you to import designs from other programs. The board itself is challenging. Finding the right place for each part is the first challenging task. This is vital since it will be tough to change anything afterward. And it’s crucial because you have to consider electrical and mechanical limits for each element, which aren’t documented. It is also important to choose the right routing and track attributes. This is also crucial for the circuit performance since the tracks shall withstand the current and voltage of each node, and curtain tracks have a minimum or maximum length.
6. What Major Challenges Did You Face During Your Last Role? How Did You Manage Them?
Collaboration with my team, mostly made up of internship students, was one of my challenges in my previous role. They were making critical errors that slowed our progress. Most of them lacked the required knowledge, while others were simply careless. I’d always find a way to assist them. First, I would try to assist them in locating a solution or correcting the error. If this doesn’t work, I’ll seek help from my supervisor or boss. I am aware that I am not responsible for disciplining members who repeatedly make mistakes. As a result, I would always report such cases to the appropriate office.
7. Describe The Many Approaches That Can Be Used To Address Scalability.
A hardware engineer can increase the scalability of a system by improving it. This could imply enhancing the system’s processing capability for me to work more quickly and process more work in less time. Another method of increasing the scope of a system is to improve the architectural designs. This will result in a more effective means of deploying codes on hardware. In the case of computer systems, scalability can also be achieved by expanding the amount of memory available.
8. Describe Your Daily Routine As A Computer Engineer?
My daily routine revolves around completing a variety of tasks. Even though I have limited time, I always prioritize my daily tasks. First, I list all the projects or tasks that need to be completed. Then I figure out what their deadlines, dependencies, and urgency are. With this in mind, I prioritize the tasks that must be completed first. The less urgent items follow these. The list concludes with projects dependent on others or is not time-sensitive. If several projects or tasks must be completed simultaneously, I use my multitasking skills to complete them on time.
9. Explaining A Technical Issue To Someone Who Isn’t Technically Savvy Is Difficult. How Would You Go About It?
When explaining and making others comprehend technical concerns, I have found that employing a cheat sheet is highly beneficial. It will aid in explaining technical jargon more straightforwardly. As a way to improve understanding, I would employ analogies and illustrations.
10. What Is The Difference Between A Serial And A Parallel Port?
The serial and parallel ports transfer data into and out of the computer. In serial port transmission, only one bit is sent at a time. The majority of serial ports on personal computers are compliant with the RS-232C or RS-422 standards. A parallel interface allows you to connect an external device, such as a printer. The parallel port on PCs uses a 25-pin connector (type DB-25) to connect printers, computers, and other devices that require relatively high bandwidth. It employs parallel data transmission.
11. Describe Briefly About Your Experience?
I earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering four years ago. One of the premier institutes in the country awarded me CompTIA and PC Hardware certifications. I’ve worked on hardware projects before in different capacities. Computer systems and components such as CPUs and circuit boards are among the things I’ve worked on in my career so far. Additionally, I’ve tested, built, and tweaked product prototypes using models created through computer simulation. As a result, I’ve worked with various programming languages, including Python and C++. I bring a wealth of technical expertise and industry knowledge to our organization.
12. Differentiate Between Cisco &Risc.
RISC and CISC are two different computer chip design philosophies used to create computer chips. A popular technical term in the 1990s, RISC was employed in many processors in the enterprise market.
Each clock cycle is one instruction for RISC-based processors. Special instructions and instructions that take more than one cycle to complete can be found in CISC machines. As a result, a single instruction performed on a CISC system may necessitate the execution of many instructions on a RISC processor.
13. What Kind Of Strategies And Mindset Is Required For This Role?
To effectively resolve customer issues about hardware installation and operation, every computer engineer must be able to operate under time constraints. It is critical for a computer engineer to demonstrate strong interpersonal skills to establish positive working relationships with clients and customers when dealing with clients.
14. To Put It Another Way, What Is “Hyper-Threading”? How Does It Help?
“thread” refers to instructions transmitted to the central processing unit (CPU). To maximize the efficiency of unused processing cycles, hyper-threading was invented. As the name suggests, the data needed to run a particular thread is stored in a separate set of registers, small areas of high-speed memory.
When a CPU core is waiting for data to be received from another memory location, it can use these spare computation cycles to run a different thread on the spare registers. It will be possible for the CPU core to begin working immediately since the second set of registers will be pre-loaded with the data needed to run the second thread.
15. What Is The Biggest Challenge You Foresee In This Job?
One of the most difficult challenges I expect to face in this sector is keeping up with the constantly changing technologies in computer hardware. Changes in technology, ranging from power to semi-conductor, are regularly occurring today, and this presents a challenge because the changes take place in a short period.
Because technology is constantly evolving, I make it a point to keep up with the latest trends and breakthroughs in my profession. In addition, I’m interested in learning how other technological breakthroughs might influence the way things are done in my field. The knowledge I gain from learning about new technologies allows me to make better decisions about how I can improve current processes or designs.
16. What Is The Distinction Between An Interrupt Service Routine And A Subroutine?
A subroutine is a piece of code within a larger program that performs a specific task while remaining relatively independent of the rest of the code. Hardware interrupts are handled by interrupting service routines. They are not separate threads but rather signals. They are used when an interrupt causes any thread to be suspended. In contrast to subroutines, which run when we call them, ISR runs whenever there is a signal from either the software or the hardware. The main difference is that we can determine where the subroutine runs but not when the ISR will be executed.
17. What Is The Intel Atom Processor And How Does It Work?
According to Intel, the Atom family of processors are extremely small central processing units (CPUs) typically found in ultraportable devices such as netbooks, cell phones, and tablet PCs. Despite their small size and low energy consumption, atom processors can handle most everyday tasks, such as email and instant messaging.
18. How Do You Stay Motivated At Work?
I am a self-motivated individual, especially when working with computers.
Technology has always been a source of fascination for me. When I saw that my college was offering computer engineering as a course, I thought I was meant to become well-versed in the world of technological advancement. There has never been a time when we have looked back!
Working as a computer hardware engineer is quite demanding, which I enjoy. Every day brings a new task and the joy that comes from completing that challenge is a wonderful feeling.
19. Can You List A Few Of The Most General Rules Of Assembly Language That You Know?
The following are some of the most often seen rules in assembly language:
- In assembly language, the label field can either be left blank or contain a symbolic address used to locate the address.
- Instruction fields can contain machine pseudo-instructions that can be specified.
- Comment areas can either be filled in with text or left blank.
- Symbolic addresses can only contain up to four characters, which is the maximum allowed.
- The comment field is denoted by a forward slash, while a comma denotes the symbolic addresses field at the conclusion.
20. Could You Please Tell Me The Difference Between Scram And Dram?
SCRAM, often known as static RAM, is a computer memory that saves every bit of data on MOSFETs. This means it is utilized in devices that demand quick data access but do not require much storage space. CPU caches, router buffers, hard drives, and printers are examples of such devices. On the other hand, DRAM stores each bit of data in a transistor and a capacitor that are coupled together. It is officially referred to as Dynamic RAM. It must be updated regularly to keep data because capacitors leak power, causing data to be lost quickly.
21. Mention Some Of The Examples Of Microprocessor Components.
A microprocessor’s components include the arithmetic and logic unit, which performs math computations such as division, addition, and subtraction, as well as Boolean functions; registers, which serve as temporary data storage areas for microprocessors; control units, which receive signals from the CPU and transfer data from one microprocessor to another; and memory caches, which speed up the computing process by preventing the CPU from having to access the slower random access memory.
22. What Exactly Is A Chip? What Is The Importance Of This?
A chip, often known as a computer chip, is a small piece of electrical equipment that is portable in size. Even though it is modest in size, it has many electronic components that have been manufactured within it. For it to function properly, it requires around +5V power. The fundamental goal of chips is to reduce the size of any electronic hardware while also avoiding other design difficulties. They are beneficial in that they aid in reducing the cost factor to a significant level.
23. What Is The Quickest Method To Decide The Cache Locations To Store Memory Blocks?
Direct mapping is the simplest method of defining cache locations to store memory blocks, as shown in the following example.” It converts each block of main memory into a single cache line, which is the only one that may be used. The cache is divided into numerous sets containing a single data line in a direct-mapped cache structure. It can only employ a single cache line based on the address of the memory block in question. A column matrix can be used to represent the cache.
24. What Exactly Is Soldering And De-Soldering In Hardware Design?
Any piece of hardware is made up of several little components that must all work together to function properly. In electronics, soldering is used to join one component to another with a soldering gun manually. When any hardware customization is required, this technique is taken into consideration. On the other hand, De-soldering separates these components from one another or the PCB, or printed circuit board, on which they were originally assembled.
25. Share With Us Your Greatest Achievement.
My previous firm needed to create a board that could be used on various platforms. The majority of the employees lacked the patience required to undergo such arduous experimenting to produce such aboard. Therefore, they quit. Although stubborn in my refusal to quit, it took four years of constant experimentation with various boards and technologies before I finally came up with the right board that works on various platforms such as Windows, Apple, and Android. I believe that this breakthrough is my most significant accomplishment to date.
Conclusion
The interviewer uses these questions to determine whether you are a good fit for the job. You can demonstrate that you are the right candidate by studying and practicing them. While answering each question, make sure you are audible. Also, arrive early at the interview location and be well-dressed.
