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ABBREVIATIONS



Other Abbreviations
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Not includingIC packages.

0

Term Meaning Comments
2-wire Generally means I2C (Term used by manufacturers without a licence from Philips)
3S Tri-state Output can be put in high-impedance mode

A

Term Meaning Comments
ACFA Advanced CMOS* Frame Aligner Siemens
ACIA Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter Also called UART. More
A/D Analog to Digital
ADC Analog to Digital Converter
ADMA Advanced DMA* controller Siemens
ADPCM Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation Both the sender and the receiver predict what the next sample will be based on the fact that the human voice and simple modem signals never contain two frequencies at once and then instead of sending the complete 8 bits PCM* code only the difference is send in 4 bits.
ADTV Advanced Definition TV
AGC Auto Gain Control Adjusts input audio volume automatically. Not easy to do. May severely distort recordings. Beware!
AGP Accelerated Graphics Port. This port was added after the PCI bus proved to be to slow for graphics. Disadvantage: Only one AGP slot per motherboard, so multiple displays becomes more difficult. There seem to be AGP video cards that can handle multiple displays (199902 at $900).
ALI ATM Line Interface TranSwitch
AM Amplitude Modulation The amplitude variation of a wave carries a slower wave.
AMDM ATM Multiplexer/DeMultiplexer (QSI)
Amp Amplifier Chipwise usually an OPerational AMPlifier (OpAmp*). There is also a company called AMP. They mainly make (good!) connectors.
AND The logical AND* function. The output is high if and only if all inputs are high.
AOI And-Or-Invert First a couple of AND-ports, whose outputs go into a single NOR* port. The last inversion is probably because NOR* ports are faster then OR*'s and because ports with inverted outputs offer more possibilities.
ARCOFI Audio Ringing COdec* FIlter Siemens
ASLAC Advanced Subscriber Line Audio processing interface AMD
ASLIC Advanced Subscriber Line Interface AMD
Async Asynchronous Not clocked, so just a bunch of logic ports one after another.
atto 10**-18

B

Term Meaning Comments
Baud Unit for baudrate* (next entry).
Baudrate Signal level changes per second. Often confused with BPS*. Named after mister Baudot. In early modems the baudrate* was equal to the BPS*, hence the confusion.
BCP Biphase Communications Processor NS
BinHex The Apple way to code binary files using visible ASCII-only to fascillitate sending the data over pure-ASCII (or unknown) networks. The UNIX variation is UUEncode. Usually the datastream is chopped in parts of six bits and ' ' is added. This has the extra advantage that only upper case characters are used. Old computers couldn't handle lower case letters. More.
BPS Bits Per Second This is relevant for serial connections. Beware that the nominal and actual bitrate may differ depending on the reliability of the medium. Once a medium has a certain reliability you can enhance it's reliability to whatever you like by sacrificing speed.

C

Term Meaning Comments
CAD Computer Aided Design Using a computer to design products. For PCB CAD* programs see /m/cad.htm.
CAM Computer Aided Manufacturing It's the next step after CAD*. Together they are often called CAD*/CAM*. See also the next entry.
CAM* Content Addressable Memory The memory is not addressed according to it's linear address but by it's content, usally some sort of tag to gain access to the real data. This kind of memory was originally often used to implement MMU*'s. Currently two-way associative look aside buffers are more common, because they can work faster (less drain on the address lines). This means that the part of the address lines that are used for associative purposes becomes smaller and the deterministic part bigger. With a two way caching mechanism however you can get into serious caching problems when copying arrays etc. For example when adding the elements of two screen image arrays and putting it in the video RAM.
CAN Controller Area Network Type of network.
CC C compiler Compiler for the language C
CCD Charge Coupled Device Kind of DRAM, that can sense light intensities. oth/ccd.txt.
CDB Cell Delineation Block device TranSwitch
CDR Clock and Data Recovery TranSwitch
CISC Complex Instruction Set Computing As opposed to RISC. CISC* was the classic way of designing processor instruction set. It was based on the misapprehention of the hardware designers that the programmers were still programming in Assembler and wanted powerful addressing modes. Compilers don't like complex instructions however.
CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
Codec Coder Decoder This is a combined ADC and DAC for telecom purposes. The digital format is usually A-law or µ-law PCM*. More.
COFF Meant to be a universal format for binary files. Every computer type uses it's own variation however.
COFI COdec* FIlter
COFISLIC COdec* FIlter and Subscriber Line Interface Circuit AMD
CompactPCI Passive backplane specification for (industrial) PCI.
CPLD Complex Programmable Logic Device See 'PLD'.
CPU Central Processing Unit This is called MPU on these pages, because we're only thinking in terms of chips here. CPU's could also be complete PCB's.
CRT Cathode Ray Tube This is the basic part of a video monitor that actually shows the images. A television set has additional circuitry to decode and select one out of several broadcasting channels and to handle audio, teletext and in future even much more.
CSP Chip Scale (or size?) Packaging May be TI-only terminology
CTC Counter Timer Circuit Counters and timers are basically the same because timers just count time ticks. However since we see time as an absolute continuum, in our nativity we tend to make a difference. I once had to program a system that at any moment might have access to:
  • the system time (from the crystal)
  • the RTC time (from a battery-fed Philips chip)
  • the DCF-77 receiver time
  • the user time (users always seem to know better what time it is ;-)
Add that you can also get the time via all kinds of networks or by dialing in and the problem gets even more complicated.

D

Term Meaning Comments
D/A Digital to Analog
DAA Data Access Arrangement
DAC Digital to Analog Converter MPU's and MCU's 'think' digitally so to convert these 'thoughts' to the real world we need to convert this, usually parallel binary, data to an analogue voltage or current. The simplest solution is using a resistor network costing only a few dimes. Another cheap solution is generating a square wave with a certain high-low ratio (duty cycle) and feeding that via a resistor into a capacitor which will then average it out. There are also much more sophisticated solutions. The company 'Analog' got big specializing on this.
DART Dual* Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter Two UART's
DCF-77 Time info transmitter in Mainflingen, Germany. Only usable in a circular area around the transmitter in Europe. oth/dcf-77.txt.
DCPAT Dual* CEPT Primary Access Transceiver AT&T
DD Double density Floppy disk type. DD* uses a more advanced bit coding than Single Density (SD*). SD* and DD* floppies are the same. See also High Density (HD*).
DDS Direct Digital Synthesis The IC*'s AD7008 and AD9850 from Analog Devices are often used as computer controlled signal generators in highend RF applications. The integrated circuits generate a high quality sinewave with nearly constant amplitude between about 0,01 Hz and 65 MHz. Frequency and phase angle of the output signal are being varied by serial input data. The ideal circuit for HAM radio ;-)
Demux Demultiplexer
DMA Direct memory access See next entry
DMAC Direct memory access controller This is a separate, very simple but fast co-processor (consisting mainly of counters) that is allowed to handle the address and data lines of the system (after being instructed to do so by the main processor). It will either 'steal' single cycles on the bus or do 'burst' accesses, mainly to do I/O. The usefulness of DMA* during a certain era depends heavily on the difference in speed between the processor and the system and it's interrupt overhead. It also depends on if the peripheral will need to be serviced regurarly with single bytes or small blocks or that it can buffer data itself and do a burst just now and then. With the current trend to put more and more memory and intelligence in the peripherals and CPU's getting faster and faster DMA* is gradually getting more and more obsolete. Even modern UART's already have an internal 64 bytes buffer so the CPU can handle them and DMA* is not needed.
DPST Double Pole, Single Throw Type of switch
DRAM Dynamic Random Access Memory See DRAM
DS Double sided Floppy disk term
DSP Digital Signal Processor See DSP.
DSR Dynamic Shift Register Also RS-232 term: Data Set Ready. DTR means 'Data Terminal Ready'. 'Set' means 'modem' since RS-232 mainly dealed with the terminal-modem connection situation. A PC was traditionally seen by IBM as a terminal and not as a real computer...
DTMF Dual* Tone Multi-Frequency This is the system to code special information over a traditional analogue telephone line. Normally a single person only uthers one frequency at a time. By sending two frequencies at the same time for a certain time (about 0.1 s) it's possible to make quite sure not to get these tones confused with human speech. The frequencies are choosen such that they have no harmonics in common. For a receiver, check out the Mitel MT8870 (second sourced by Samsung). For a sender check out the Philips I2C part PCD3311, PCD3311A or PCD3312.
Dual Containing 2 equal devices
DUART Dual* Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter Device with two UART's

E

Term Meaning Comments
ECL Emitter Coupled Logic Is very fast and expensive
EDO-RAM Extra (Extended?) Data Output RAM See also DRAM
EDTV Enhanced Definition TV
EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
ELIC Extended Line Card Interface Controller Siemens
EPIC Extended Peripheral Interface Circuit Siemens
EPROM Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
ESC Enhanced Speech Circuit Siemens
ESCC Enhanced Serial Communication Controller Siemens
Euro-AV/SCART* See SCART*
Exa 10**18 or for computers 1024**6

F

Term Meaning Comments
FALC Frame And Line interface Component Siemens
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
FCODE Forth Code Processor independent language to write device drivers for the PCI-BUS. oth/fcode.txt.
FDC Floppy Disc Controller This is the chip (or formally the board) that controles the floppy disc drive. Basically there are two families: The 1771 family by Western Design/Digital Corporation (?) and the 765 family by NEC (same as 8272 by Intel, but who did really design it?).
femto 10**-15
FET Field Effect Transistor. This is a voltage driven transistor. (The much more popular PNP and NPN transistors are current driven.)
FFT Fast Fourier Transformation This is a method to transform data from the time domain (that we normally live in) to the frequency domain (which is only interesting for freaks who want to study trends in signals). Of course those freaks make a good living of off their knowledge because examining trends can be big business. Simple consumers like us may notice FFT* in our hifi sets when it has a display which shows the energy in different frequency ranges.
FIFO First In First Out Like in a queue in the post office. The alternative is a stack or LIFO (Last In First Out).
FM Frequency Modulation A slower wave is carried by the small frequency variations of a carrier wave. The predecessor was AM* which carried it's child wave using variations in amplitude. This however was much more prone to distortions, because the amplitude of a signal suffers from all kinds of reflections etc. FM* uses more bandwidth in turn however.
FPAA Field Programmable Analog Array Enables building fast analog circuits. Motorola seems to have left this field now...
FPDRAM Fast Page DRAM. Outdated by EDO and SDRAM* etc.
FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array This is a 'cheap' way to design your own chips. All the components are already on the chip, but 'in the field' you program them to make the right connections between the components. Cheap is not really true for large amounts since the chip will use a lot of energy for the components that you're not really using. These components are also expensive because they carry a lot of unused silicon around. They may also be slow. Startup time may be hindered by the fact that their functionality needs to be loaded from a serial ROM. The software needed to achieve the functionality may also be expensive and getting your personal used to the software may also take time. However once the design is ready and tested there may be an easy path to having the design being mass produced in a real ASIC. Xilinx became big making these things.
FRAC FRame Aligner Circuit Siemens
FS-PAL Field Sequential Phase Alternation Line
FYI For Your Information

G

Term Meaning Comments
GAIM GSM Analog Interface Module Siemens
giga 10**9 or for computers 1024**3
GLU General Logic Unit
GLUE Generally 7400-series chips to glue (connect) VLSI-chips together This is a popular/meta term, so use with caution.
Gnd Ground voltage level Normally referred to as 0V. However be aware that there may be several Gnd* levels in a system. There is the board ground per board, the chassis ground and when interconnecting systems there may occure ground loops that can pick up magnetic fields etc.

H

Term Meaning Comments
HAC Hands-free Add on Circuit Siemens
HCMOS High-speed Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
HCT High-speed CMOS* TTL compatible
HD High density Floppy disk type. HD* uses the same coding as DD*, but just reads and writes twice as fast.
HDSL
HDTV High Definition TV A TV with a higher resolution on screen.
Hex Containing 6 equal devices Also: Hexadecimal (16) base notation for numbers.
HPC High Performance microController Old term used by NS. Look under MCU. Can also mean: Hand-held Personal Computer, High Performance Computing or High Pressure Compressor
HQX File name extension of BinHex* files See BinHex*.
HSCC High level Serial Communication Controller Siemens
HSCX High level Serial Communication controller eXtended Siemens
HV-SLIC High Voltage Subscriber Line Interface Circuit

I

Term Meaning Comments
I2C (=IIC) Intra Integrated circuit (-bus) Philips
IBC ISDN Burst Controller Siemens
IC Integrated Circuit It's usually called chip on these pages
ICC ISDN Communication Controller Siemens
ICE In-Circuit Emulator Expensive apparatus to simulate a processor. Also the name of a company.
IDEC ISDN D channel Exchange Controller Siemens
IEC ISDN Echo Cancellation circuit Siemens. See also IEC
IEPC ISDN Enhanced Power Controller Siemens
IHPC ISDN High voltage Power Controller Siemens
IO Input and Output
I/O Input and Output
I-PAL Improved PAL*
IPAT ISDN Primary rate Access Transceiver Siemens
IRPC ISDN Remote Power Controller Siemens
ISA-bus Bus in the IBM-PC http://www.annabooks.com/
ISAC ISDN Subscriber Access Controller Siemens
ITAC ISDN Terminal Adapter Circuit Siemens
ITAC-PTE ISDN Terminal Adapter Circuit for uPn Terminal Equipment Siemens

J

Term Meaning Comments
JADE Joint Audio Decoder Encoder Siemens
JEDEC Joint Electronics Design Engineering Council
JTAG Joint Test Action Group of IEEE Defining test interfaces for integrated circuits, for example a boundary scan interface for digital ICs in the IEEE 1149.1 standard. To my knowledge other interfaces - e.g. for analog chips - are in development and will be published as IEEE 1149.2, 1149.3 and so forth.

K

Term Meaning Comments
kilo 2**3 = 1000 or for computers 1024

L

Term Meaning Comments
LCAS Line Card Access Switch AT&T
LS Low-power Schottky Kind of TTL. Succeeded by HCT*.
LSI Large Scale Integration. Also the name of a company.
LV-SLIC Low Voltage Subscriber Line Interface Circuit

M

Term Meaning Comments
M13 DS1/DS3 Multiplexer TranSwitch
M13E DS1/DS3 Multiplexer Extended features TranSwitch
MAC Multiplexed Analogue Components
MCU See MCU
mega 10**6 = 1000*1000 For computers 2**20=1024*1024 and for harddisks sometimes even 1000*1024
MEMS MicroElectro Mechanical Systems, see for example: http://www.memsrus.com/
MFAST Mwave Folded Array Signal Transform (IBM)
MFLOPS Mega* Floating Point Instructions Per Second
micro 10**-6
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
milli 10**-3
MIPS
MMU Memory Management Unit
Modem Modulator/demodulator (follow the link).
MOS Metal Oxide Semiconductor As in CMOS*
MOSFET Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (FET*)
MPU Micro* Processor Unit (=single chip CPU)
MSI Medium Scale Integration
MTSC Memory Time Switch CMOS* Siemens
MTSL Memory Time Switch Large Siemens
MTSS Memory Time Switch Small Siemens
MUART Multifunctions Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
Mudem Multiplexer and Demultiplexer Not an official term
MUNICH MUlti-channel Network Interface Controller Siemens
MUSAC MUltipoint Switching And Conferencing unit Siemens
MUSAC-A MUltipoint Switching And Conferencing unit Attenuation Siemens
Mux Multiplexer

N

Term Meaning Comments
NAND Not-AND A NOT-operation after an AND-operation
nano 10**-9
NIU Network Interface Unit Dallas
NMOS NPN-transistors-only Metal Oxide Semiconductor
NOR Not-OR A NOT-operation after an OR-operation
NOT The output is high if the input is low and low if the input is high
NTSC National Television System Committee or 'Never The Same Color' ;-) American color television standard
NV Non volatile (Keeps it's contents without power-connection)
NVRAM Non volatile RAM (Keeps it's contents without power-connection)
NXOR Not-XOR (The result is a NOT-operation after an XOR-operation)

O

Term Meaning Comments
OC Open collector Needs pull-up resistor
Octal Containing 8 equal devices Same as Octuple
OI Opto Isolator
OpAmp Operational Amplifier
OR The output is high if at least one of it's inputs is high.
OS Operating System
OTP One Time Programmable
OTPROM One Time Programmable Read Only Memory

P

Term Meaning Comments
PAC Primary Access framer/Controller AT&T
PAL Programmable Array Logic (=chip) or Phase Alternation Line (=European color television standard)
PBC Peripheral Board Controller Siemens
PBSRAM Pipeline Burst SRAM* Used as cache
PCB Printed Circuit Board
PCI
PCM Pulse Code Modulation
PEEL Programmable Electrically Eraseable Logic See ICT.
Peta 10**15 or for computers 1024**5
PHY PHYsical layer, see http://www.marvell.com/news/june19_00.htm
PIA Parallel Interface Adapter
PIC Peripheral Interrupt Controller (Intel), Peripheral Interface Controller (MicroChip) or Peripheral Interface Circuit (Siemens)
pico 10**-12
PIO Parallel Input Output Usually called PIA*
PIPO Parallel in parallel out
PISO Parallel in serial out
PLA Programmable Logic Array
PLD
PLL Phase Locked Loop
PMOS P-type Metal Oxide Semiconductor
PRISM Primary Rate Interface Signaling and Maintenance controller Siemens
PROM Programmable Read Only Memory

Q

Term Meaning Comments
QDS1F Quad* DS1 Framer TranSwitch
Quad Containing 4 equal devices Short for Quadruple
QUAT-S QUAdruple Transceiver for S/T interface Siemens
Quint Containing 5 equal devices Short for Quintuple

R

Term Meaning Comments
RAM Random Access Memory
Ref Reference Voltage (Used for A/D* Converters)
RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computing. txt/risc.htm, oth/risc.txt.
ROM Read Only Memory
RS232 The norm for serial transmission to terminals, modems and printers
RTOS Real Time Operating System Normal operating systems use as long as it takes to complete their tasks, but real time operating systems are designed such that the makers can quarantee a certain maximum response time for all kinds of events like interrupts.

S

Term Meaning Comments
SAR Successive Approximation Register Part of an ADC
SARE Segmentation And Reassembly Element Siemens
SBC S Bus Circuit Siemens
SBCX S Bus Circuit eXtended Siemens
SCART European connector definition for TV's and VCR's etc.
Schmitt Schmitt-trigger
SCNT1 Single Chip Network Termination 1 (NT1) AT&T
SCSI Small Computer System Interface. Pronounce as 'skuzi'.
Scuzi See SCSI
SD Single density Floppy disk type. See DD*.
SDHT SDH/SONET Transceiver Siemens
SDRAM Synchronous DRAM.
SECAM Systeme èn Coleur Avec Mémoire
SHAC Simple Hands-free Add-on Circuit Siemens
SHARC Super Harvard ARchitecture Computer Analog
SICAT SIemens Concept Analog Telephone Siemens
SICOFI SIgnalling COdec* FIlter Siemens
SIO Serial Input Output Usually called UART
SIPO Serial in parallel out
SISO Serial in serial out
Skuzi See SCSI
SLAC Subscriber Line Audio processing interface AMD
SLDRAM
SLIC Subscriber Line Interface Circuit
SLICOFI Subscriber Line Interface Circuit and signaling COdec* FIlter Siemens
SLIP Serial Line Interface Protocol Describes the protocol for making host-to-host connections using back-to-back serial ports (with crossover cable, of course). Can be used between two computers or to interconnect two hosts residing within a single computer. Robert L. Smith.
SM3 SONET 3:1 Multiplexer TranSwitch
SOT STS-1 Overhead Terminator TranSwitch
SPLD Simple Programmable Logic Device
SPST Single pole, single throw Switch type
SR Shift Register
SRAM Static RAM
SS Single sided Floppy disk type
SSC Standard Speech Circuit Siemens
SSR Static Shift Register (Early designs were often dynamic) or Solid State Relay
STAF SDH Transceiver And Framer TranSwitch
Sync Synchronous The circuit works in phases. After a clock pulse the logic between any two registers gets enough time to stabilize and at the next clock pulse the results are loaded into the next register. Most complex circuits work in a synchronous mode. CPU designers try to minimize the clock period as much as possible, which means that they are constantly busy trying to minimize the time that the at-that-moment slowest logic part needs. When a piece of logic can't be speeded-up they can decide to divide that part in two and when necessary include it twice. (See also RISC).

T

Term Meaning Comments
Tera 10**12 or for computers 1024**4
Triple Containing 3 equal devices.
TSI Time Slot Interchanger AT&T
TTL Transistor Transistor Logic

U

Term Meaning Comments
UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
µC Micro* Controller Same as MCU. It's a small micro* processor combined with a couple of peripherals on a chip
ULSI ultra large scale integration
UMPS Modeling language for CPU cores http://www.vmdesign.com/
µP Micro* Processor (=MPU or CPU)
UPI Universal Programmable Peripheral Interface Intel terminology
UPS Uninterruptable Power Supply This will keep your computer or other equipment running for a while more (about 15 minutes) after the 110/220V has gone, so it can still finish tasks and power down your computer in a controlled way. It may also guard against spikes on the 110/220V etc. It will usually contain some sort of accu. If you want to keep your computers running longer you'll need an aggregate running on some sort of fuel.
USART Universal Synchronous/Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter This is a UART that can also work in synchronous mode. Synchronous means that the data isn't send in bytes with a start and stop bit around it, but the data bits are send continously. The bit clocks of the two USART*'s need to be synchronized in another way (for example via an extra line).
UTP Unshielded Twisted Pair This is a cheaper alternative for coax cable. Coaxial cable has the inner wire completely shielded by the other cable which is wooven around the inner one (and a tube of isolating material). This way magnetic fields can't influence the inner wire. Twisted pair cable has two wires that are wound around each other. This way both wires should experience the same fields and therefore both signals are distorted the same way. By subtracting the two signals from each other in the receiver the distortions are removed again.
UTPT Unshielded Twisted Pair Transceiver Siemens

V

Term Meaning Comments
VBAP Voice Band Audio Processor TI
VCA Voltage controlled amplifier
Vcc Main power supply Generally 5V
VCO Voltage controlled oscillator
Vdd Secondary power supply
Vee Negative power supply
VESA Video Electronics Standards Association VGA-interface and Local-Bus-definition
V/F Voltage to Frequency (=VCO)
VGA
VLSI Very Large Scale Integration
Vpp Programming power supply Generally higher then Vcc*
VRAM Video Random Access Memory Serial and/or dual* access(?)
VtoF Voltage to Frequency converter Same as VCO

W

X

Term Meaning Comments
XOR Exclusive OR* The output is high when the number of high inputs is odd.

Z

More abbreviations:
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/ - Computing Dictionary

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