Glossary

1. Capacitance, capacitor

Carrier-to-noise

Common anode

A wire is a single conductor while cable is a group of two or more conductors.

Computer-aided design

Controller Area Network. The CAN protocol is an international standard defined by ISO 11898.

A phenomenon where a signal on one line/trace is capacitively coupled to an adjacent line/trace.

A capacitor is a passive electronic component that consists of two conductive plates separated by an insulating dielectric. A voltage applied to the plates develops an electric field across the dielectric and causes the plates to accumulate a charge. When

32-bit version of the PC card (formerly PCMCIA) standard

Column-Address-Strobe: The signal that tells the DRAM to accept the given address as a column-address; used with RAS and a row-address to select a bit within the DRAM

Category 3: Refers to Ethernet cabling that satisfies the criteria for the EIA/TIA-568 standard's Category 3, which allows data transfers up to 10Mbps.

Category 5: Refers to Ethernet cabling that satisfies the criteria for the EIA/TIA-568 standard's Category 5, which allows data transfers up to 100Mbps.

Constant bit rate

Constant Current/Constant Voltage battery charger

Constant current/constant voltage

Charge Coupled Device: One of the two main types of image sensors used in digital cameras. When a picture is taken, the CCD is struck by light coming through the camera's lens. Each of the thousands or millions of tiny pixels that make up the CCD convert

Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lighting: Often used as a backlight for LCD displays.

Cold Cathode Fluorescent Tube: Often used as a backlight for LCD displays.

Complementary code keying

Continuous-conduction mode; crossconnect module

Clock distribution circuit

Clock Distribution Device or Clock Distribution Driver

Code Division Multiple Access: A digital cellular technology that uses spread-spectrum techniques. Unlike GSM and other competing systems that use TDMA, CDMA does not assign a specific frequency to each user. Instead, every channel uses the full available

Clock/data recovery. Clock/data recovery is a function or circuit that extracts a clock signal from an incoming data stream.

Chip enable control

Chebyshev (filter)

Channel-to-channel skew. A signal on one channel has a different phase than the same signal on another channel (delayed/skewed). This is measured in picoseconds, max.

Channel Associated Signaling (CAS): Some communications protocols include "signaling" functions along with data. Channel Associated Signaling protocols include signaling in the data channel (as opposed to a dedicated signaling channel).

Channels

A parameter pertinent to analog switches. As an analog switch turns on and off, a small amount of charge can be capacitively coupled (injected) from the digital control line to the analog signal path.

A power supply which uses capacitors to store and transfer energy to the output, often stepping the voltage up or down. Charge is transferred from one capacitor to another under control of regulator and switching circuitry. 

Method the battery charger uses to determine when to terminate the charging cycle.

CHAnnelized T1 and E1 And Universal HDLC controller

Integrated circuit: A semiconductor device that combines multiple transistors and other components and interconnects on a single piece of semiconductor material.

A feature in microprocessor supervisory circuits which prevents the writing of erroneous data when power falls outside of spec. When the main power-supply voltage is below the minimum safe-operating limit, the feature disconnects the chip-enable signal pa

A choke is an inductor used to block higher-frequency alternating current (AC) in an electrical circuit, while passing lower-frequency or direct current (DC).

A chopper circuit is used to refer to numerous types of electronic switching devices and circuits used in power control and signal applications. 

The color portion portion of a composite video signal. Forms a complete picture once combined with the luminance component.

Consecutive identical digit(s)

Cable integrity monitor

Complex instruction set computer (CISC): Computer hardware designed to support complex instructions, as opposed to RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture.

The simplest type of amplifier, class A amplifiers are those in which the output transistors conduct (i.e. do not fully turn off) irrespective of the output signal waveform. This type of amplifier is typically associated with high linearity but low effici

Class AB amplifiers combine Class A and Class B to achieve an amplifier with more efficiency than Class A but with lower distortion than class B.

Class B amplifiers are those in which the output transistors only conduct during half (180 degrees) of the signal waveform. To amplify the entire signal two transistors are used, one conducting for positive output signals and the other conducting for nega

A class C amplifier is a form of switching amplifier in which the transistors are on for less than a half cycle (less than 180 degrees) -- often, much less. For instance, the transistor may be on only during the top 10% of the signal excursion, delivering

Class D amplifiers are those that output a switching waveform, at a frequency far higher than the highest audio signal that needs to be reproduced. The low-pass filtered, average value of this waveform corresponds to the actual required audio waveform.

Class G amplifiers are similar to class AB amplifiers except they use two or more supply voltages. When operating at low signal levels, the amplifier uses a lower supply voltage. As the signal level increases, the amplifier automatically picks the appropr

Class H amplifiers modulate the supply voltage to the amplifier output devices so that it is never higher than necessary to support the signal swing. This reduces dissipation across the output devices connected to that supply and allows the amplifier to o

A feature that eliminates "clicks" and "pops" — unwanted transient noise signals during power-up, shutdown, connection, etc.

The process of extracting and reconstructing clock and data information from a single-wire/channel, serial data stream.

A periodic waveform (especially a clock) is expected to cross certain thresholds at precisely timed moments. Variations from this ideal are called jitter.

Reducing the frequency or duty-cycling the clock of an integrated circuit usually for the purpose of reducing heat generation.

Centimeter: 1/100 of a meter, 0.39 inches.

Current-mode feedback

Code matrix insertion

Current-mode logic

Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology in which p- and n-channel MOS transistors are used in tandem.

Common Mode Rejection Ratio: The ability of a differential amplifier to not pass (reject) the portion of the signal common to both the + and - inputs.

Coarse offset

Short for compressor/decompressor, a codec is any technology for compressing and decompressing data. Codecs can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of both.

Chip-on-glass

Describes the sampling of a periodic signal, where an integer number of its cycles fits into a predefined sampling window.

An electromagnetic coil is an electrical conductor such as a wire in the shape of a coil, spiral or helix.

Correction loop capacitor

A modulated carrier, added to a television signal, to carry the color components.

Common-mode signals are identical signal components on both the + and - inputs of a differential amplifier or instrumentation amplifier. A common example is in a balanced pair, where a noise voltage is induced in both conductors. Another example is where

Comparator propagation delay. This is the lag between the input crossing the comparator threshold, and the output changing states.

Signal processing technique which uses both compression and expansion to improve dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio.

A comparator is a device that accepts two analog inputs, compares the inputs, and produces a binary output that is a function of which input is higher. If the non-inverting (+) input is greater than the inverting (-) input, then the output goes high. If t

Central Office Line: telephone line

CompoNet is a four-wire, industrial, bus with a master-slave architecture. It is used at the lower network levels to transmit bit or word information, such as for use in sensors and actuators. Up to 256 slaves are supported on a bus. Data rates of 93.75kb

Attaching electronic components to a printed circuit board

When a mechanical switch or relay closes, the switch elements will often bounce, even if only briefly, before making final contact. This is of consequence if downstream elements are sensitive to the switching transients. A contact debouncing circuit is of

An ESD test method where the ESD generator makes direct contact with the device under test (DUT).

In a general sense, a controller can be thought of as something or someone that interfaces between two systems and manages communications between them.

A line which is in the same plane as another line. Any two intersecting lines must lie in the same plane, and therefore be coplanar.

Coulomb (abbreviated C) is the standard measure of electrical charge.

Comparable part

Ceramic pin grid array, an IC packaging technology.

Cyclic Redundancy Check: A check value calculated from the data, to catch most transmission errors. A decoder calculates the CRC for the received data and compares it to the CRC that the encoder calculated, which is appended to the data. A mismatch indica

Command register and interface logic

In an output stage (or similar amplifying stage which uses one device to pull the signal up and another to pull the signal down), the region in which the high-side device is turning on and the low-side device is turning off, or vice versa.

A crowbar circuit is a power supply protection circuit that rapidly short-circuits ("crowbars") the supply line if the voltage and/or current exceeds defined limits. In practice, the resulting short blows a fuse or triggers other protection, effectively s

The art and science of breaking encryption or any form of cryptography.

Chip select

Chip Scale Package: An IC packaging technology in which solder balls take the place of pins, making the smallest package available. When heated, the solder balls alloy to matching pads on the circuit board.

Retry timeout capacitor

Startup timer capacitor

Current is a flow of electrical charge carriers, usually electrons or electron-deficient atoms.

An alternative op amp topology usually used in high-speed amplifiers. It is sensitive to feedback impedance, and cannot be used as an integrator.

A DC-DC switching regulator which regulates its output voltage by varying the peak inductor current on a cycle-by-cycle basis to output a regulated voltage despite variations in load-current and input-voltage.

An amplifier that measures current by measuring the voltage drop across a resistor placed in the current path. The current sense amp outputs either a voltage or a current that is proportional to the current through the measured path.