2.4 GHz ISM
Industrial, Scientific, and Medical band for Bluetooth Low Energy
4s1p (4 series cells and 1 parallel cell)
Four AA batteries are connected as 4s1p.
The standardized RF impedance.
An acronym of IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks. It is a protocol that allows power constrained IoT devices to access the TCP/IP internet directly.
A (amp)
A unit of electrical current.
A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile)
Part of the Bluetooth protocol. It's the most common protocol for wireless audio streaming, designed to unidirectionally transfer an audio stream in up to two-channel stereo from one device to another. A2DP does not handle TWS and will send the stream to one device, which then splits the channels to two speakers that are connected by a wire.
AC vs DC
alternating current vs. direct current
ACAP (adaptive compute acceleration platforms)
Xilinx new Versal FPGAs.
Also known as serial correlation, is the correlation of a signal with a delayed copy of itself as a function of delay.
ADC
Analog-to-Digital Converter
A variant of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) that varies the size of the quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required data bandwidth for a given signal-to-noise ratio.
Echo suppression and cancellation methods are commonly called acoustic echo suppression (AES) and acoustic echo cancellation (AEC).
A specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001.
An extension to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and AMD proposed by Intel in March 2008.
AFA
all flash array (storage)
AFE
analog front end
AHB
AMBA High-performance Bus
Advanced High-Performance Bus Access Port
AHRS (Attitude Heading Reference)
An IMU is a specific type of sensor that measures angular rate, force and sometimes magnetic field. IMUs are composed of a 3-axis accelerometer and a 3-axis gyroscope, which would be considered a 6-axis IMU. They can also include an additional 3-axis magnetometer, which would be considered a 9-axis IMU. Technically, the term “IMU” refers to just the sensor, but IMUs are often paired with sensor fusion software which combines data from multiple sensors to provide measures of orientation and heading. In common usage, the term “IMU” may be used to refer to the Attitude Heading Reference System.
The process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency.[1] It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate passes or layers and then combine the resulting 2D images into a single, final image called the composite.
Assistive Listening Systems for hearing aids.
A fundamental building block of many types of computing circuits, including CPU, FPG, and GPU. It's a combinational digital electronic circuit that performs arithmetic and bitwise operations on integer binary numbers, which is in contrast to a floating-point unit (FPU) that operates on floating point numbers.
AMA (Alexa Mobile Accessory)
Protocol for Bluetooth accessories.
An open-standard, on-chip interconnect specification for the connection and management of functional blocks in system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs. It facilitates development of multi-processor designs with large numbers of controllers and components with a bus architecture. AMBA is a registered trademark of Arm.
AMIC
analog microphone
AMOTA (Ambiq Micro Over The Air)
Ambiq Micro OTA (over the air) update
An electronic device that can increase the power of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power supply to increase the amplitude of a signal applied to its input terminals, producing a proportionally greater amplitude signal at its output. The amount of amplification provided by an amplifier is measured by its gain: the ratio of output voltage, current, or power to input. An amplifier is a circuit that has a power gain greater than one.
Also known as noise cancellation, or active noise reduction (ANR), is a method for reducing unwanted sound by the addition of a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first.
A private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States.
ANT defines a wireless communications protocol stack that enables hardware operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band to communicate by establishing standard rules for co-existence, data representation, signalling, authentication, and error detection. It is conceptually similar to Bluetooth low energy, but is oriented towards usage with sensors. ANT is a proprietary (but open access) multicast wireless sensor network technology designed and marketed by ANT Wireless (a division of Garmin Canada). ANT+ is lower power standard ANT.
The technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. Anti-aliasing means removing signal components that have a higher frequency than is able to be properly resolved by the recording (or sampling) device.
AOA
Angle of Arrival
AOD
Angle of Departure
APB
Advanced Peripheral Bus
APU
AI Processor Unit
ARR
Annual Recurring Revenue (accounting)
ASHA
Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids
Also known as speech recognition to text (STT), is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers.
ASRC
Asynchronous Sampling Rate Converter
ATB (Advanced Trace Bus)
An AMBA bus protocol for trace data. The ATB is a common bus used by the trace components to pass trace data in a system in a data-agnostic format. A trace device can use an ATB to share CoreSight capture resources.
An electronic design automation method/technology used to find an input (or test) sequence that, when applied to a digital circuit, enables automatic test equipment to distinguish between the correct circuit behavior and the faulty circuit behavior caused by defects.
ATVV
Android TV Voice
AUDADC (audio analog-to-digital converter)
Ambiq low power audio analog-to-digital converter (in Apollo3 product line) versus LPADC which stands for Low Power ADC.
Microcontrollers by Atmel, acquired by Microchip.
AVS is Amazon's suite of services built around its voice-controlled AI assistant for the home and other environments. AVS and Alexa were first introduced with Echo, the company's intelligent speaker, which enables voice interaction with various systems in the environment and online. Alexa is available for an ever-increasing number of other devices, including smart phones, tablets and remote controls.
AVT
Part of the ARM Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture 3 (AXI3) and 4 (AXI4) specifications. It is a parallel high-performance, synchronous, high-frequency, multi-master, multi-slave communication interface, mainly designed for on-chip communication.
B2See (Bring to See)
An action to wake up the smartwatch.
The number of bit errors per unit time. The bit error ratio (also BER) is the number of bit errors divided by the total number of transferred bits during a studied time interval. Bit error ratio is a unitless performance measure, often expressed as a percentage.
A deep learning algorithm related to natural language processing. It helps a machine understand what words in a sentence mean, but with all the nuances of context.
BFE
biquad filter engineer
ball grid array
Burn in Board is a printed circuit board which functions as a jig in the Burn-in process. The Burn-in Board is used as part of the ASIC reliability testing process during which components are stressed to detect failures. Burn in Boards consist of sockets to accommodate the tested ASICs and are designed to withstand the hot temperatures during tests.
A structural test method that adds logic to an IC which allows the IC to periodically test its own operation. Two major types are memory BIST and logic BIST.
A data operation commonly used in computer graphics in which several bitmaps are combined into one using a boolean function.
BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)
Also known as Bluetooth 4.0 wireless, personal-area network with short-range low-power consumption.
A brown-out is a term used to describe a dip or drop in voltage supply. A black-out is when there is a total loss of voltage, but a brown-out could just be a dip below the voltage range of the micro-controller.
BrownOut Reset is an important function to increase the reliability of a microcontroller after start-up. Normally used to solve problems with the power supply.
A bounding box is an imaginary rectangle that serves as a point of reference for object detection and creates a collision box for that object. A useful tool for annotators looking to create reliable datasets. Image processing is one of the main reasons why computer vision continues to improve and drive innovative AI-based technologies. From self-driving cars to facial recognition technology—computer vision applications are the face of new tech.
bit per pixel
BPU
Brain Processing Unit
BR/EDR
(Bluetooth) Basic Rate/Enchanced Data Rate
BTA
bus turnaround
A DC-to-DC power converter which steps down voltage (while stepping up current) from its input (supply) to its output (load).
Commodity Classification Automated Tracking System (CCATS) is an alphanumeric code assigned by the United States Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to products that it has classified under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Software companies provide the CCATS number because some encryption exports require the exporter to make post-shipment reporting to BIS on a bi-annual basis and the CCATS number is one of the mandatory elements required for reporting.
CNNs
Convolutional Neural Networks
A portmanteau of coder-decoder. A device or computer program which encodes or decodes a digital data stream or signal.
COM
computer-on-module
COTS
Commercial-Off-The-Shelf
TSMC die packaging solution.
The process of wafer testing, a step performed during semiconductor device fabrication. During this step, performed before a wafer is sent to die preparation, all individual integrated circuits that are present on the wafer are tested for functional defects by applying special test patterns to them.
CRF
Configuration Register File
CSP (Chip-Scale Package)
Chip-scale package (CSP) is a dual or multi-layer plastic encapsulated BT-Epoxy type substrate with copper signal and plain layers.
CTE
Constant Tone Extension
CVFS (Continuous Voltage Frequency Scaling)
ETA Compute patented technology.
DP - Debug Port
AP - Access Port
DBI
display bus interface
dBm (sometimes dBmW or decibel-milliwatts) is unit of level used to indicate that a power ratio is expressed in decibels (dB) with reference to one milliwatt (mW).
VDC (video display controller) - an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing or game system.
A computer bus transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal: SDR - single data rate QDR - quad data rate
A double data rate (DDR) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) class of memory integrated circuits used in computers.
Decap
to remove the cap from
A graphical plot of error rates for binary classification systems, plotting the false rejection rate versus false acceptance rate.
DFU
device firmware updates
Add white noise to (a digital recording) to reduce distortion of low-amplitude signals. A specification by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance aimed at reducing the cost of display controllers in a mobile device.
A highly optimized hardware unit in FPGA specializing in accelerating the ternary neural network (TNNs), while the proposed framework can significantly compress the deep neural networks (DNN) parameters down to two bits with little accuracy drop.
A feature of computer systems that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system memory (random-access memory) independent of the central processing unit (CPU).
DMIC (digital microphone)
Versus AMIC which is analog.
DNN
deep neural network
Denotes the direction from which usually a propagating wave arrives at a point, where usually a set of sensors are located. These set of sensors forms what is called a sensory array. Often there is the associated technique of beamforming which is estimating the signal from a given direction.
A doping agent. A substance used to produce a desired electrical characteristic in a semiconductor.
A signal encoder that uses the baseline of pulse-code modulation (PCM) but adds some functionalities based on the prediction of the samples of the signal. The input can be an analog signal or a digital signal.
The interface defined by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI), which is used for Active-Matrix LCD displays for handheld devices. It is intended for the display modules in the mobile devices.
- A design rule is a geometric constraint imposed on circuit board, semiconductor device, and integrated circuit (IC) designers to ensure their designs function properly, reliably, and can be produced with acceptable yield. Design rules for production are developed by process engineers based on the capability of their processes to realize design intent.
- A step in CAD (computer aided design) software that is used for IC (or printed-circuit board) design. For example, if you are not allowed to have two traces too close to each other (since they might touch each other because of fabrication tolerances), then this would be ‘flagged’ by the DRC step, which will report a failure, forcing you to modify the design to meet the rules.
A design rule is a geometric constraint imposed on circuit board, semiconductor device, and integrated circuit (IC) designers to ensure their designs function properly, reliably, and can be produced with acceptable yield. Design rules for production are developed by process engineers based on the capability of their processes to realize design intent.
A specification by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance aimed at reducing the cost of display controllers in a mobile device.
DSP
digital signal processor
DVT (Design Validation Test)
The DVT (vs.EVT vs. PVT) build is supposed to be one configuration of your production-worthy design, made of components from production processes (and hard tools) and on a line following production procedures.
Data Watchpoint and Trace
ECC
error-code correction
A five character alpha-numeric designation used on the Commerce Control List (CCL) to identify dual-use items for export control purposes. ECCNs are divided into ten broad categories, and each category is further subdivided into five product groups.
A document that is used to bring about authorized changes in components and assemblies. They may also be used for changes in documents such as drawings, processes, work instructions and specifications. It can also be used for a modification that will have an effect on a manufactured product or manufacturing process.
A category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards.
EEMBC develops industry-standard benchmarks for the hardware and software used in autonomous driving, the Internet of Things, machine learning, and many other applications.
a microscopic fuse put into a computer chip. This technology was invented by IBM to allow for the dynamic real-time reprogramming of chips. In the abstract, computer logic is generally "etched" or "hard-wired" onto a chip and cannot be changed after the chip has finished being manufactured. By utilizing a set of eFuses, a chip manufacturer can allow for the circuits on a chip to change while it is in operation.
EGS
electronic grade silicon
ENC (Environmental Noise Cancellation)
Similar to active noise cancellation (ANC)
Entrophy
In computing, entropy is the randomness collected by an operating system or application for use in cryptography or other uses that require random data. This randomness is often collected from hardware sources (variance in fan noise or HDD), either pre-existing ones such as mouse movements or specially provided randomness generators. A lack of entropy can have a negative impact on performance and security.
EOC
end of conversion
A hardware macrocell that, when connected to a processor, outputs trace information on a trace port. An optional debug component that enables reconstruction of program execution. The ETM is designed as a high-speed, low-power debug tool that ensures the area is minimized, and that gate count is reduced. The ETM provides processor driven trace through a trace port compliant to the ATB protocol. An ETM always supports instruction trace, and might support data trace.
EVB
evaluation board
The EVT build is the first time you combine looks-like and works-like into one form factor, with production intent materials and manufacturing processes.
A new process to crystallize amorphous silicon without melting and the ... metal-induced crystallization
Biometrics. The probability that the system incorrectly matches the input pattern to a non-matching template in the database. The probability that the system fails to detect a match between the input pattern and a matching template in the database.
A portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data. Modern video cards contain framebuffer circuitry in their cores.
FEC (forward error correction)
Bluetooth 5 feature.
A type of transistor which uses an electric field to control the flow of current. FETs are devices with three terminals: source, gate, and drain. FETs control the flow of current by the application of a voltage to the gate, which in tern alters the conductivity between the drain and source. An n-channel FET is referred to as a N-FET.
An open industry association that develops and promotes authentification standards to help reduce the world's over-reliance on passwords. FIDO supports a full range of authentification technologies, including biometrics (fingerprint, iris, voice, facial), Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB security tokens, embedded Secured Elements (eSE), smart cards, and near field communication (NFC).
A type of non-planar transistor, or "3D" transistor. A multigate device, a MOSFET built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the channel, forming a double gate structure. These devices have been given the generic name "finfets" because the source/drain region forms fins on the silicon surface. The FinFET devices have significantly faster switching times and higher current density than planar CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology.
Publicly announced standards developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for use in computer systems by non-military American government agencies and government contractors.
FOTA
Firmware Over-the-Air
FPGA vs ASIC (application specific integrated circuits)
Floating Point Unit
A random-access memory similar in construction to DRAM but using a ferroelectric layer instead of a dielectric layer to achieve non-volatility. FeRAM is one of a growing number of alternative non-volatile random-access memory technologies that offer the same functionality as flash memory. FeRAM's advantages over Flash include: lower power usage, faster write performance and a much greater maximum read/write endurance (about 1010 to 1014 cycles). FeRAMs have data retention times of more than 10 years at +85°C (up to many decades at lower temperatures). Market disadvantages of FeRAM are much lower storage densities than flash devices, storage capacity limitations and higher cost. Like DRAM, FeRAM's read process is destructive, necessitating a write-after-read architecture.
A frame is a digital data transmission unit in computer networking and telecommunication. In packet switched systems, a frame is a simple container for a single network packet. In other telecommunications systems, a frame is a repeating structure supporting time-division muliplexing. Frames are the basic unit of data transport, of which there are four fundamental types (data, acknowledgement, beacon and MAC command frames), which provide a reasonable trandeoff between simplicity and robustness.
A form of temporal dithering which cycles between different color shades with each new frame to simulate an intermediate shade.
FreeRTOS is a market-leading real-time operating system (RTOS) for microcontrollers and small microprocessors. Distributed freely under the MIT open source license, FreeRTOS includes a kernel and a growing set of IoT libraries suitable for use across all industry sectors. FreeRTOS is built with an emphasis on reliability and ease of use.
FRR
False Rejection Rate
A frequency modulation scheme in which digital information is transmitted through discrete frequency changes of a carrier signal. The simplest FSK is binary FSK (BFSK). BFSK uses a pair of discrete frequencies to transmit binary (0s and 1s) information.[2] With this scheme, the 1 is called the mark frequency and the 0 is called the space frequency.
Finite State Machine
For biometric devices.
Generic Audio Framework
A nonlinear operation used to encode and decode luminance or tristimulus values in video or still image systems.
A binary III/V direct bandgap semiconductor commonly used in light-emitting diodes since the 1990s. Because GaN transistors can operate at much higher temperatures and work at much higher voltages than gallium arsenide (GaAs) transistors, they make ideal power amplifiers at microwave frequencies. In addition, GaN offers promising characteristics for THz devices.
GAP provides a framework that defines how BLE devices interact with each other.
GAP defines the general topology for the BLE network stack. GATT describes in detail how attributes (data) are transferred once devices have a dedicated connection.
A standard way to reduce spectral width. A filter whose impulse response is a Gaussian function. Gaussian filters have the properties of having no overshoot to a step function input while minimizing the rise and fall time.
A measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate measure than measuring instructions per second (IPS).
Rather than directly modulating the frequency with the digital data symbols, "instantaneously" changing the frequency at the beginning of each symbol period, Gaussian frequency-shift keying (GFSK) filters the data pulses with a Gaussian filter to make the transitions smoother. This filter has the advantage of reducing sideband power, reducing interference with neighboring channels, at the cost of increasing intersymbol interference.
A machine learning compiler that accelerates the performance of deep learning frameworks on different hardware platforms. It enables the ecosystem of hardware developers and researchers to focus on building next gen hardware accelerators that can be supported by deep learning frameworks like PyTorch.
Gate level simulation is used to boost the confidence regarding implementation of a design and can help verify dynamic circuit behavior, which cannot be verified accurately by static methods. It is a significant step in the verification process
A general term describing any satellite constellation that provides positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services on a global or regional basis
An interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes. In practice, Gouraud shading is most often used to achieve continuous lighting on Triangle meshes by computing the lighting at the corners of each triangle and linearly interpolating the resulting colours for each pixel covered by the triangle.
GPIO (General Purpose Input/Output)
A type of pin found on an integrated circuit that does not have a specific function.
GPU
Graphic Processing Unit
A form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, instead of text-based user interfaces, typed command labels, or text navigation.
The purpose of the hardware abstraction layer was to allow desktop applications to discover and use the hardware of the host system through a simple, portable, and abstract API, regardless of the type of the underlying hardware, such as a GPIO HAL interface.
It was developed as a shorter alternative to Temperature Humidity Bias (THB) Testing. If THB testing takes 1000 hours to complete, HAST results are available within 96-100 hours.
A register-level interface that enables a host controller for USB or IEEE 1394 hardware to communicate with a host controller driver in software.
Used to allow car hands-free kits to communicate with mobile phones in the car. It commonly uses Synchronous Connection Oriented link (SCO) to carry a monaural audio channel with continuously variable slope delta modulation or pulse-code modulation, and with logarithmic a-law or μ-law quantization.
Versus LFRC - low frequency RC (resistors and capacitors)
HPC
High Performance Computing
Or TRNG, true random generator, a device that generates random numbers from a physical process, rather than by means of an algorithm.
A reliability test applied to integrated circuits (ICs) to determine their intrinsic reliability. This test stresses the IC at an elevated temperature, high voltage and dynamic operation for a predefined period of time. The IC is usually monitored under stress and tested at intermediate intervals. This reliability stress test is sometimes referred to as a "lifetime test," "device life test," or "extended burn in test" and is used to trigger potential failure modes and assess IC lifetime.
Inductor saturation current (ISAT) is the current where the inductance drops by a certain percentage, and is determined by the inductor's core size for a given core material and construction.
A synchronous, multi-master, multi-slave, packet switched, single-ended, serial communication bus, widely used for attaching lower-speed peripheral ICs to processors and MCU in short-distance, intra-board communications.
Allows serial transfer of full duplex streaming data, usually streaming audio, between DSP and an external I2S peripheral such as an audio codec.
I3C (Improved Inter Integrated Circuit)
I3C will provide high speed, lower power, and more functions. Obvious improvements for example, multi data line Vs. 1 data line, DDR (double data rate) Vs. SDR
Integrated Development Environment
IEEE
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Impedance Matching (input impedance, output impedance)
The practice of designing the input impedance of an electrical load or the output impedance of its corresponding signal source to maximize the power transfer or minimize signal reflection from the load.
inFO (Integrated Fan-Out)
TSMC die packaging solution - InFO PoP, InFO-M.
A memory management unit (MMU) that connects a direct-memory-access-capable (DMA-capable) I/O bus to the main memory.
Provides distributed object interfaces to base SAS software features such as the procedural scripting language, data, file system, results content, and formatting services. IOM enables you to use industry-standard languages, programming tools, and communication protocols to develop client programs that access these services on IOM servers.
An abstract model of a computer. It is also referred to as architecture or computer architecture. A realization of an ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an implementation.
An international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations.
A special block of code associated with a specific interrupt condition, initiated by hardware, software interrupt instructions, or software exceptions to implement device drivers or transitions between protected modes of operations, such as system calls.
ITM (Instrumentation Trace Macrocell)
Versus ETM (Embedded Trace Macrocell). Hard real-time debugging requires close interaction with the processor. Tracing provides a chronological picture of a system's inner workings up to, starting from, or in the vicinity an event, mainly to guide a human in understanding a faulty program, providing a lightweight, nonintrusive way to collect debug trace output.
An IEEE group that is focused on silicon chip testing methods. Many debug and programming tools use a Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) interface port to communicate with processors, and verify design and test printed circuit board after manufacture.
ksps - kilo (thousands) of samples per second
sps - samples per second
Msps - mega (millions) samples per second
KWD (key word detection)
Detects from the sound/voice for a designated keyword to determine whether to take action.
L2CAP (Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol Layer)
Acts as a protocol multiplexing layer. It takes multiple protocols from the upper layers and places them in standard BLE packets that are passed down to the lower layers beneath it.
LC3
Low Complexisty Communications Codec
A DC linear voltage regulator that can regulate the output voltage even when the supply voltage is very close to the output voltage.
A feature in the CAD tool from Cadence.
LED
light-emitting diode
low-frequency oscillator
LL
link layer
The logical link control (LLC) data communication protocol layer is the upper sublayer of the data link layer (layer 2) of the seven-layer OSI model. The LLC sublayer acts as an interface between the media access control (MAC) sublayer and the network layer.
An electronic amplifier that amplifies a very low-power signal without significantly degrading its signal-to-noise ratio.
LPADC
Low Power Analog-to-Digital Converter
LTE-M or LTE-MTC (machine-type communications)
One of three new standards, along with NB-IoT, from the cellular industry allowing devices that operate on carrier networks to be less expensive and more power efficient.
A microcontroller or microprocessor peripheral that generates a reset signal when the Vcc supply voltage falls below Vref. Sometimes is combined with power-on reset (POR) and then it is called POR-LVD.
mA (milliampere)
Compared to μA (micro-amp).
IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards. In digital signal processing, the MAC operation is a common step that computes the product of two numbers and adds that product to an accumulator. The hardware unit that performs the operation is known as a MAC. 1 MMAC/s is equivalent to 2 MOPS (1 MAC is 2 operation).
mAH (milliamps per hour)
maH is battery power, the more the merrier. MHz (megahertz) is the processor speed, the higher the better.
MAPBGA
molded array process ball grid array
Provides an effective solution for testing of such large memories. Verification of functioning MBIST is an essential part in any SoC design cycle, as it enables the designer to detect beforehand any issues related to MBIST.
A broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be deterministic in principle. They are often used in physical and mathematical problems and are most useful when it is difficult or impossible to use other approaches. Monte Carlo methods are mainly used in three problem classes: optimization, numerical integration, and generating draws from a probability distribution.
MDK
Mix (or Module) Development Kit
MEMS
MicroElectro Mechanical System
A practical technique for sending and receiving more than one data signal simultaneously over the same radio channel by exploiting multipath propagation. A method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmission and receiving antennas to exploit multipath propagation.
Developing the world's most comprehensive set of interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced products.
MIPS
millions of instructions per second
The device that generates the clock signal is called the master. MOSI and MISO are the data lines. SPI interfaces can have only one master and can have one or multiple slaves.
A set of practices that aims to deploy and maintain machine learning models in production reliably and efficiently.
A benchmark suite for AI applications run by the MLCommons consortium. MLPerf is an industry-wide AI consortium tasked with developing a suite of performance benchmarks that cover a range of leading AI workloads widely in use. The latest MLPerf v1.0 training round includes vision, language and recommender systems, and reinforcement learning tasks.
MMU
Memory Management Unit
mmWave
millimeter-wave
MOPS (mega operations per second)
Millions of operations per second versus GOPS (Giga Operations per Second) and TOPS (Tera Operations per Second).
A type of insulated-gate field-effect transistor (IGFET) that is fabricated by the controlled oxidation of a semiconductor, typically silicon. The voltage of the covered gate determines the electrical conductivity of the device; this ability to change conductivity with the amount of applied voltage can be used for amplifying or switching electronic signals.
The device that generates the clock signal is called the master. MOSI and MISO are the data lines. SPI interfaces can have only one master and can have one or multiple slaves.
MPU
MicroProcessor Unit or Memory Protection Unit
A type of non-volatile random-access memory which stores data in magnetic domains.
mSBC (modified Sub Band Coding)
Modified Sub Band Coding Audio Encoder (open source) by BlueZ
MSPI
Multi-bit SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface)
MSps
mega (millions) samples per second
A component consisting of two ferromagnets separated by a thin insulator. If the insulating layer is thin enough (typically a few nanometres), electrons can tunnel from one ferromagnet into the other.
Also known as a data selector, MUX is a device that selects between several analog or digital input signals and forwards it to a single output line.
mW
milliwatt
NB-IoT
Narrowband IoT
NDP
Neural Decision Processors
Measures of degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), caused by components in a signal chain. It is a number by which the performance of an amplifier or a radio receiver can be specified, with lower values indicating better performance. The noise figure is simply the noise factor expressed in decibels (dB).
NFC (Near-Field Communication)
Popular as a contactless communication between mobile devices, NFC is used to send information without physical device connection.
NFF
no fault found
NFMI
near-field magnetic induction
NIC
networking interface card
Non Maskable Interrupt
NPU
Neural Processing Unit
NSP
Neural Sensor Processor
NTC thermistors are resistors with a negative temperature coefficient, which means that the resistance decreases with increasing temperature. They are primarily used as resistive temperature sensors and current-limiting devices. The temperature sensitivity coefficient is about five times greater than that of silicon temperature sensors (silistors) and about ten times greater than those of resistance temperature detectors (RTDs). NTC sensors are typically used in a range from −55°C to 200°C.
Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) Sensors provide solid state temperature sensing for a range of applications and are available in custom engineered probe package configurations for a variety of mounting and connectivity options.
Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller
Non-Volatile Memory (device)
OCR (optical character recognition)
Part of pattern recognition.
A recognition of the intrinsic variability of semiconductor processes and their impact on factors such as logic timing. Historically, as well as operating temperature, timing variation was primarily a consequence of subtle shifts in manufacturing conditions that would lead to ICs from one batch of wafers being 'slow' or 'fast' relative to nominal estimates. If the design passed these two tests, the chip could be considered to have met its timing constraints.
OPCG (On-Product Clock Generator)
It is helpful in generating high speed clock pulses for speed testing.
OPI (Octal SPI PSRAM)
Versus QPI (Quad SPI PSRAM)
OPUS
Audio codec that incorporates technology from Skype SILK codec and Xiph.Org’s CELT.
outsourced assembly and test
The companies that offer third-party IC-packaging and test services. These companies provide packaging to silicon devices that are made by foundries and test devices prior to shipping to the market.
A conceptual model that characterises and standardises the communication functions of a telecommunication or computing system without regard to its underlying internal structure and technology. Its goal is the interoperability of diverse communication systems with standard communication protocols. The model partitions a communication system into abstraction layers.
Also known as one-time pin or dynamic password, is a password that is valid for only one login session or transaction, on a computer system or other digital device.
OTP (One-Time Programmable Memories)
A particular type of non-volatile that can be programmed only once, versus MTP (Multiple-Time Programmable), a replacement of Flash for security applications or calibration applications.
OVVP
Own Voice Vibration Pick-up (by U-COMM)
PAST (Periodic Advertising Sync Transfer)
Bluetooth 5.1 feature.
printed circuit board
In the application of integrated circuits, process control monitoring (PCM) is the procedure followed to obtain detailed information about the process used.
A method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals.
A type of non-volatile random-access memory.
A set of files used within the semiconductor industry to model a fabrication process for the design tools used to design an integrated circuit. The PDK is created by the foundry defining a certain technology variation for their processes.
A form of modulation used to represent an analog signal with a binary signal. In stereo mode, the PDM converts 1-bit stereo pulse density modulated (PDM) bit stream data from external digital microphone into 24-bit pulse-code modulated (PCM) data for base-band processing.
PER (Packet Error Rate)
A method of reducing the average power delivered by an electrical signal, by effectively chopping it up into discrete parts.
A family of standards comprising a test methodology for automated assessment of the speech quality as experienced by a user of a telephony system. It is standardized as ITU-T recommendation P.862 (02/01). Today, PESQ is a worldwide applied industry standard for objective voice quality testing used by phone manufacturers, network equipment vendors and telecom operators.
An electronic amplifier (typically an operational amplifier) whose gain can be controlled by external digital or analog signals. The gain can be set from less than 1 V/V to over 100 V/V. Examples for the external digital signals can be SPI, I2C while the latest PGAs can also be programmed for offset voltage trimming, as well as active output filters. Popular applications for these products are motor control, signal and sensor conditioning.
A light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronic industry.
peripheral interface controller (trademark by Microchip)
PIM
Processor-in-Memory
PIO (Programmed Input/Output)
Programmed Input/Output mode is having the capability of transferring data at a maximum burst rate of 16.7 MBytes per second. PIO mode is also very CPU intensive and has no built in error correction. Slower than DMA (direct memory access).
A control system that generates an output signal whose phase is related to the phase of an input signal. There are several different types; the simplest is an electronic circuit consisting of a variable frequency oscillator and a phase detector in a feedback loop.
A new generation of time-of-flight (ToF) cameras that realizes 3-D imaging by measuring the distance to the target pixelwise in parallel without scanning.
A class of integrated circuits that perform various functions related to power requirements. PMICs are solid state devices that control the flow and direction of electrical power.
A microcontroller that governs power functions of digital platforms. This microchip has many similar components to the average computer, including firmware and software, memory, a CPU, input/output functions, timers to measure intervals of time, and analog to digital converters to measure the voltages of the main battery or power source of the computer. The PMU is one of the few items to remain active even when the computer is completely shut down, powered by the backup battery.
The power-on reset (PoR) is an electronic device incorporated into the integrated circuit that detects the power applied to the chip and generates a reset impulse that goes to the entire circuit placing it into a known state.
A DoE technique that refers to a variation of fabrication parameters used in applying an IC design to a semiconductor wafer.
PSA Certified is a security certification scheme for Internet of Things (IoT) hardware, software and devices.
PSRAM, or PSDRAM, is a dynamic RAM with built-in refresh and address-control circuitry to make it behave similarly to static RAM (SRAM). It combines the high density of DRAM with the ease of use of true SRAM.
PSRR
Power supply ripple rejection performance of the LDO (low dropout voltage linear regulators).
PVT is the “last build” — the units you are building are supposedly intended to be sold to customers, if they pass all of your test stations. PVT typically transitions directly into Ramp and Mass Production, or a Pilot build with no time gap.
Inter-chip variation which depend largely on external factors like: the ambient temperature; the supply voltage, and the process of that particular chip at the time of manufacturing.
A method of reducing the average power delivered by an electrical signal, by effectively chopping it up into discrete parts. The main advantage of PWM is that power loss in the switching devices is very low.
The most popular semiconductor package today because of four reasons: low cost, small form factor and good electrical and thermal performance.
A surface-mounted integrated circuit package with "gull wing" leads extending from each of the 4 sides.
QPI (Quad SPI PSRAM)
Versus OPI (Octal SPI PSRAM)
An ecosystem, established by Sparkfun, of special inter-integrated Circuit (I2C) protocol connection system that connect sensors, actuators, shields, and cables that make prototyping faster and less prone to error.
Part of a mobile telecommunicadtion system. It implements a radio access technology (RAT). Conceptually, it resides between a device such as a mobile phone, a computer, or any remotely controlled machine and provides connection with its core network (CN). Depending on the standard, mobile phones and other wireless connected devices are varyingly known as user equipment (UE), terminal equipment, mobile station (MS), etc. RAN functionality is typically provided by a silicon chip residing in both the core network as well as the user equipment.
Rasterisation is one of the typical techniques of rendering 3D models. The task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (a series of pixels, dots or lines, which, when displayed together, create the image which was represented via shapes).
The underlying physical connection method for a radio based communication network. Many modern mobile phones support several RATs in one device such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GMS, UMTS, LTE or 5G NR.
Or RC filter, or RC network, is an electric circuit composed of resistors and capacitors driven by a voltage or current source. A first order RC circuit is composed of one resistor and one capacitor and is the simplest type of RC circuit.
RC Oscillator
resistor-capacitor
An extra metal layer on a chip that makes the IO pads of an integrated circuit available in other locations of the chip, for better access to the pads where necessary. Versus "direct bump" which are the two construction types of WLCSP.
Impact of Read Enable (RE) signal's Duty Cycle Distortion (DCD) must be integrated in NAND to Flash Management Controller (FMC) SI simulation to predict system level performance accurately in multi-die, high performance systems. Assuming 50% duty cycle signal at the input to NAND driver is too optimistic. Both FMC and NAND contribute a portion of duty cycle distortion in the NAND read cycle.
A software architectural style that defines a set of constraints to be used for creating Web services. It's an architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems.
RF
radio frequency
RFFE
RF front-end
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)
RFID tags can be used to detect and record such as temperature, movement, radiation levels.
RFIO Impedance
A device that generates a sequence of numbers or symbols that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by a random chance. HRNG - Hardware RNG. TRNG - True RNG
RPM
remote patient monitoring
A form of nonvolatile storage that operates by changing the resistance of a specially formulated solid dielectric material. ReRAM and other memristor technologies also draw much less power than NAND flash. That makes them currently best suited for memory in sensor devices for industrial, automotive and internet of things (IoT) applications. As the cost of manufacturing for ReRAM and other memristors drops, they become competitive with NAND flash. The higher memory density, faster read and write speeds, and lower power draw are reasons why memristor-based memory technologies are often cited as the logical replacement in applications like solid-state drives (SSDs) and nonvolatile dual in-line memory modules (NVDIMMs).
A measure of the power level at the receiver. When a device scans for Bluetooth devices, the Bluetooth radio inside the device provides a measurement of the RSSI for each seen device. It's measured in decibels, dBm, on a logarithmic scale and is negative.
A design abstraction in digital circuit design which models a synchronous digital circuit in terms of the flow of digital signals (data) between hardware registers, and the logical operations performed on those signals.
A design abstraction in digital circuit design which models a synchronous digital circuit in terms of the flow of digital signals (data) between hardware registers, and the logical operations performed on those signals.
A class of digital circuits built using resistors as the input network and bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) as switching devices. RTL is the earliest class of transistorized digital logic circuit used.
RTLS (real-time location services)
Using a UWB sensor network, RTLS can track assets carrying UWB tags on a factory floor to about 10cm accuracy.
RTM
Release to Market
RTOS
Real-time Operating System
successive-approximation register analog-to-digital converter
SBC
subband codec
Serial bootloading is a feature that enables a cc254x device to load into flash an embedded software image from a host processor through a serial interface such as UART or SPI.
SBR
Secure Boot ROM
SCA
Sleep Clock Accuracy Bluetooth 5.1 field
SCPM
System Controller and Power Management
SCR
System Control Register
Secure Digital Input Output, a type of Secure Digital card interface. It can be used as an interface for input or output devices.
SDN
Software-Defined Network
Can accept one command and transfer one word of data per clock cycle. Typical clock frequencies are 66, 100, and 133 MHz. Clock rates up to 200 MHz were available. It operates at a voltage of 3.3 V.
SDR SDRAM
Single Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory
A type of electron microscope that produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. The electrons interact with atoms in the sample, producing various signals that contain information about the surface topography and composition of the sample.
The task of clustering parts of an image together which belong to the same object class. It is a form of pixel-level prediction because each pixel in an image is classified according to a category.
The 7 base quantities: (1) the "second" for time, (2) "the metre" for measurement of length, (3) the "kilogram" for mass, (4) the "ampere" for electric current, (5) the "kelvin" for temperature, (6) the "mole" for amount of substance, and (7) the "candela" for luminous intensity.
A semiconductor containing silicon and carbon. SiC is used in semiconductor electronics devices that operate at high temperatures or high voltages, or both.
SIG
Special Interest Group
An integrated circuit that is intended to securely store the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number and its related key, which are used to identify and authenticate subscribers on mobile telephony devices (such as mobile phones and computers).
Single-Inductor Multiple-Output Buck Converter
sims
simulations
SiP (System-in-Package)
A number of integrated circuits enclosed in one or more chip carrier packages that may be stacked using Package on package. like systems-on-chip (SoC) but less tightly integrated and not on a single semiconductor die.
SMPS (or switcher) is an electronic power supply that incorporates a switching regulator to convert electrical power efficiently.
SNR (signal-to-noise ratio)
The power ratio between the signal strength and the noise level.
SOA (safe operating area)
Safe operating area for rechargeable battery.
SoC
System-on-a-Chip
SOM
Sytem on Module
SPI is a flexible interface that balances pin count and bandwidth to maximize overall system performance at a lower cost. To offer increased throughput and support for multi-input/output (MIO) functionality, the interface has been extended to include 2-bit IO and 4-bit IO configurations.
A general-purpose, open-source analog electronic circuit simulator. It is a program used in integrated circuit and board-level design to check the integrity of circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior.
A type of random-access memory (RAM) that uses latching circuitry (flip-flop) to store each bit. SRAM is volatile memory; data is lost when power is removed. The term static differentiates SRAM from DRAM which must be periodically refreshed. SRAM is faster and more expensive than DRAM; it is typically used for CPU cache while DRAM is used for a computer's main memory.
A debug implementation that uses a serial connection between the SoC and a debugger. This connection normally requires a bidirectional data signal and a separate clock signal, rather than the four to six signals required for a JTAG connection.
SWV
Serial Wire Viewer
TCM
Tightly Coupled Memory
A method of transmitting and receiving independent signals over a common signal path by means of synchronized switches at each end of the transmission line so that each signal appears on the line only a fraction of time in an alternating pattern. It is a communication process that transmit 2 or more digital signals or analogue signals over a common channel.
A channel access method for shared-medium networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots.[1] The users transmit in rapid succession, one after the other, each using its own time slot. This allows multiple stations to share the same transmission medium (e.g. radio frequency channel) while using only a part of its channel capacity.
TDP (training data platform)
Manage the labeling of data.
TEG
Thermoelectric generator
Tenary
Each cell has 3 states: -1, 0, or 1
A repository of trained machine learning models ready for fine-tuning and deployable anywhere.
Designed to run machine learning models on microcontrollers and other devices with only few kilobytes of memory. The core runtime just fits in 16 KB on an Arm Cortex M3 and can run many basic models. It doesn't require operating system support, any standard C or C++ libraries, or dynamic memory allocation.
Usually measured by inputting a sine wave, notch filtering the output, and comparing the ratio between the output signal with and without the sine wave.
THF (Truly Hands Free)
Truly Hands Free Keyword Detection function by Sensory.
Time slicing is a scheduling mechanism/way used in time sharing systems. It is also termed as Round Robin scheduling. The aim of Round Robin scheduling or time slicing scheduling is to give all processes an equal opportunity to use CPU. In this type of scheduling, CPU time is divided into slices that are to be allocated to ready processes. Short processes may be executed within a single time quantum. Long processes may require several quanta.
A fault-tolerant form of N-modular redundancy, in which three systems perform a process and that result is processed by a majority-voting system to produce a single output. If any one of the three systems fails, the other two systems can correct and mask the fault.
TOPS
trillion operations per second
TOPS/W
Tera-Operations per Second per Watt
TP
training processor
A hardware device that captures trace information that is output on a trace port.
Acts as a bridge between the on-chip trace data, with separate IDs, to a data stream, encapsulating IDs where required, that is then captured by a Trace Port Analyzer (TPA).
NEMA|PIX-Presso has a user-friendly UI (User Interface) allowing the developers to identify the suitable image format for a given application scenario. It supports several image formats like 16-bit and 32-bit RGB (with and without transparency), grayscale and transparency-only formats of various sizes, png and jpeg formats as well as Think Silicon’s proprietary and patented formats (TSC4, TSC6 and TSC6A) that offer high compression ratios (4 and 6 bits-per-pixel respectively).
Defined as the artificial production of human voices. The main use (and what induced its creation) is the ability to translate a text into spoken speech automatically.
TWS (true wireless stereo)
Two non-wired devices serving as left and right speakers.
TX/RX
TX: Transmit; RX: Receive
UART
Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter
UBM (under-bump metallurgy (for WLCSP))
The UBM is a stack of different metal layers serving as diffusion layer, barrier layer, wetting layer, and anti-oxidation layer. "
UHD
heads-up display
Ultra-High Frequency
TSMC's 22 nm options (vs. ULP).
TSMC's 22 nm options (vs. ULL).
Low-speed (1.5 Mbit/s), Full-speed (12 Mbit/s), High-speed (480 Mbit/s), SuperSpeed (SS 5 Gbit/s - USB 3.0), SuperSpeed+ (SS+ 10 Gbit/s - USB 3.2).
UWB operates by generating short, narrow pulses and can be an attractive option for asset tracking and fleet/inventory management. Apple has disclosed only its AirDrop enhancements based on UWB, but it could also employ UWB in two-factor authentication. Meanwhile, NXP is working with BMW and Volkswagen on next-generation keyless-entry systems; UWB's location accuracy can eliminate the relay attacks used to defeat conventional systems.
Also known as speech activity detection or speech detection, is the detection of the presence or absence of human speech, used in speech processing.
Voltage of Battery
VCD (Voice Command Device)
A device controlled by means of the human voice. By removing the need to use buttons, dials and switches, consumers can easily operate appliances with their hands full or while doing other tasks. Some of the first examples of VCDs can be found in home appliances with washing machines that allow consumers to operate washing controls through vocal commands and mobile phones with voice-activated dialing.
voltage-controlled oscillator
Voltage Comparator GP VCOMP (General Purpose)
VDDC
Voltage Dipolar Direct Core
VDDF
Voltage Dipolar Direct Flash
Refers to instruction set architectures designed to exploit instruction level parallelism (ILP). Whereas conventional central processing units (CPU, processor) mostly allow programs to specify instructions to execute in sequence only, a VLIW processor allows programs to explicitly specify instructions to execute in parallel.
VLSI (very large-scale integration)
The process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions of MOS transistors onto a single chip.
VoE (Vibration of Effects)
A technology to monitor vibration pattern.
VRM
Voltage Regulator Module
VSWR (voltage standing wave ratio or radio)
A measure of impedance matching of loads to the characteristic impedance of a transmission line or waveguide. Impedance mismatches result in standing waves along the transmission line, and SWR is defined as the ratio of the partial standing wave's amplitude at an antinode (maximum) to the amplitude at a node (minimum) along the line.
The new design by IBM and Samsung s meant to succeed the current FinFET technology that's used for some of today's most advanced chips and could allow for chips that are even more densely packed with transistors than today. In essence, the new design would stack transistors vertically, allowing for current to flow up and down the stack of transistors instead of the side-to-side horizontal layout that's currently used on most chips.
Makes spoken human interaction with computers possible, using speech recognition to understand spoken commands and answer questions, and typically text to speech to play a reply. A voice command device (VCD) is a device controlled with a voice user interface.
watchdog timer
WFE
Wait for Event