site version is  page last edited on 20021103 all links last checked on 20010223 have this site translated other mirror sites

ABC of electronics terms

(To find chips for distinct functions, see the functional pages.)

P

Packaging

See Packaging

Panel

Where	Manufacturer
www.xymoxtech.com/	Xymox Technologies

Parallel port

The parallel printer port on the PC, also called Centronics port.

See local.

Patent

patent.womplex.ibm.com/boolquery.html	The patent data base (set up by IBM).
www.ipaustralia.gov.au/	Patents in Australia
smithsonianchips.si.edu/patents/patents.htm	Chip patents at the Smithsonian Institute

PC

Personal Computer

local	IBM PC specific information for hardware and software developers
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/..	PC Hardware FAQ and the Chiplist by Aad Offerman
www.pcguide.com/	PC hardware reference site
margo.student.utwente.nl/stefan/el/	Also info about programming PC-hardware!
intrepid.mcs.kent.edu/~clisowsk/8bit/joymisc.html	Joystick info
sysdoc.pair.com/75mhzbus.html	Overclocking CPU's and motherboards
www.cit.ac.nz/smac/csware.htm	Some stuff on PC type software
www.healthypc.com/	Cure your PC and keep it healthy!
www.us-epanorama.net/pc/	Information about components in PC
www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/8113.pdf	Connecting IBM keyboard to 80c51 via I2C bus

See also under Bus and on the PC page.

PCB

Printed Circuit Board

See local.

PC-Card

New name for the 'PCMCIA' bus definition.

PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect (Local Bus definition from Intel)

PCI Special Interest Group

Books about PCI

Books from Amazon.de:

title	order at Amazon DE	price indication
PCI System Architecture, Fourth Edition (PC System Architecture Series)	ISBN: 0201309742	DM 91

PCIS

The SGML based Pinnacles Component Information Standard (PCIS) format developed by the Pinnacles group (Hitachi, Intel, NS, Philips, TI).

Pinnacles, the IC* document exchange group, opens membership

Source: eet.com/news/95/hr867.html

Richard Goering

PHOENIX -- The Pinnacles Group, an independent consortium of five semiconductor companies, is opening its membership in a bid to enhance its emerging standard for the electronic exchange of component data. To spearhead the effort, consultant Rita Glover has been named director of business development.

The original five Pinnacles member companies are Hitachi, Intel, National Semiconductor, Philips S emiconductor and Texas Instruments. Together, they've developed a Pinnacles Component Information Standard (PCIS) that allows a single data source to support CD-ROM or Internet delivery, master selection guides and faxes-on-demand. The group plans to bring its activities under the CAD* Framework Initiative (CFI) umbrella.

Voting memberships are available at two levels: the individual working group level and the project technical advisory board level, which includes a voting membership in each working group. For more information, call (602) 581-8787 or send e-mail to ritag@doc.com.

www.si2.org/ecix/	ECIX
www.si2.org/ecix/ecixfaq.htm	FAQ
eb-mag.com/eb-mag/issues/1997/9708/0897bts.asp	Another article

PCM

Pulse Code Modulation

This is the coding whereby analogue telephone data is coded logarithmically in 8 bits per sample at a sample rate of 64Kbit/s=8Kbyte/s. There are two coding standards, the European/International one called A-law and the American one called µ-law (with the u in u-law being the greek letter mu). Modern soundcards can also code using this format. The advantage of using a logarithmic coding scheme is that low-volume level and high volume level conversations can be coded with about the same precision.

See also: ADPCM* and codec.

PCMCIA

Personal Computer Memory Card International AssociationIt's the definition of the bus standard for those small memory, hard disk and modem cards that are used in lap top computers. The new name is PC-Card.

Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

1030 East Duane Ave,

Suite G

Sunnyvale, CA 94086

USA

tel: +1-408-720-0107

fax: +1-408-720-9416

PCMCIA System Architecture - Mindshare, Inc (Don Anderson), Addison-Wesley, 1995, ISBN: 0-201-40991-7

www.pc-card.com/ - WWW site of PCMCIA

www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/pc_card_faq.html - Unofficial FAQ by David Cary

PDF

Portable Data Format (?) by Adobe.

This is the industry standard for electronic versions of datasheets.

You need Adobe's Acrobat reader for looking at these files:
www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
The reader is for free, but the writer costs money.

Instead you can also put the URL of the PDF file in the body of a message to pdf2txt@adobe.com and if you are lucky, Adobe will send you the whole document in text form!

PEM

Where	Manufacturer
www.captive-fastener.com/	Captive Fasteners

Perl

An interpreted programming language, Larry Wall.

www.howstuffworks.com/perl.htm	How PERL works
www.perl.com/	At O'Reilly, (that employs Larry Wall to work on Perl full time)
www.php.net/	PHP is a less messy alternative for WWW oriented problems

pH

The pH value of water is the measure for acidity. (How sour it is). The scale goes from 0 to 14 with 7 being the neutral value between acidic and basic. Each step on the scale means 10 times as many acidic or basic molecules. Acidity is traditionally measured with litmus paper which changes color at a certain acidity.
But of course we want to measure it electronically!

www.omega.com/techref/ph.html	About pH, conductivity and dissolved oxygen
www.omega.com/techref/	Other basic chemics stuff

Phasing error

This is a hard to understand error that a primitive assembler program gives when the addresses that it assigns to the assembled program differ between the two passes.

www.coe.montana.edu/ee/cady/ee361/asmphase.htm

More about this

Photography

Industrial and electronics photography

www.mspvisual.com/

They can make electronics components look attractive! Using the latest digital technologies MSP Visual Communications can produce eye-catching publicity photos of your products.

Photonics

www.photonicsonline.com/

Photonics Online (By VerticalNet)

Physics

www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/#physics

Physics

PIC

Peripheral Interface Controller (?), by MicroChip, see PIC family.Peripheral Interrupt Controller, by Intel

ftp.psyber.com/tcj/faqs/pic.faq

FAQ in text

PIC16c84 programmer

ftp.ee.ualberta.ca/pub/cookbook/comp/ibm/pic84faq.zip

FAQ in text

Piezo

Where	Manufacturer
www.pui.com/	Projects Unlimited
www.raltron.com/	Raltron

Pinnacles

See PCIS.

Plant Automation

www.plantautomation.com/

Plant Automation (by VerticalNet)

Plastic

Where	Manufacturer
www.bivar.com/	Bivar
www.protechnology.com/	Plastic repair

PLC

Programmable Logic (?) Controller. This is a term from the industrial automation world. Siemens used to be big on this market here in Europe. Probably they still are.

www.puffinplc.org/

open source Linux PLC project

PLD

Programmable Logic Device

ftp.psyber.com/tcj/faqs/pld-prg.faq

PLD programming FAQ

Manufacturers:

• www.actel.com/
• www.altera.com/
• www.amd.com/
• www.atmel.com/
• www.attme.com/fpga/ - AT&T
• www.cypress.com/ - ?
• www.latticesemi.com/
• www.motorola.com/
• www.semiconductors.philips.com/ps/
• www.quicklogic.com/
• www.xilinx.com/

Chips:

• Programmable Logic
• FPGA

www.e-insite.net/e-insite/verticalmarkets/PLD.asp

More at Cahners'

PLL

On 20001101 Spyros Vlaxos wrote:

Hi! My name is Spyros and I would like to ask you a question about PLL*'s. Could you explain to me what a PLL* is and where it can be used?

Polymer

Where	Manufacturer
www.bourns.com/	Bourns Inc
www.dupont.com/	DuPont Chemicals Corp
www.rexamgraphics.com/	Rexam Graphics

Portable phone

Also called a cell phone (in the USA) or mobile phone.

www.worldofcellularsecrets.com/

www.worldofcellularsecrets.com/news.htm

Ports (on PC)

Ports are a kind of memory locations that Intel processors (and some others) use to speak to I/O chips. Other processor use a part of their normal memory. (This is called memory mapped I/O).
Here are a lot of the most used PC ports:

port	description	chip or device
0000	dma controller	8237A
0020	interrupt controller	8259A
0030	interrupt controller	8259A
0040	timer	8254
0050	timer	8254
0060	keyboard	8042
0070	RTC, NMI mask
0080	DMA* page registers	74LS612
0090	DMA* page registers	74LS612
00a0	interrupt controller 2	8259A
00b0	interrupt controller 2	8259A
00c0	DMA* controller 2	8237A
00d0	DMA* controller 2	8237A
00f0	math coprocessor	80287
0170	hard disk controller 2	IDE
01f0	hard disk controller 1	IDE
0200	joystick
0220	sound board
0278	lpt2
02e8	com4
02f8	com2
0300	CD-ROM interface	non-IDE
0360	network board
0378	lpt1
03b0	monochrome display adapter	MDA - Hercules, VGA
03bc	lpt3
03c0	Enhanced graphics adapter	EGA, VGA
03d0	Color graphics adapter	CGA, VGA
03e8	com3
03f0	floppy disk controller	uPD765/8272
03f8	com1

Power IC

nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca/pub/cookbook/power/

Circuit examples

Where	Manufacturer
www.cherry-semi.com/	Cherry Semiconductor

For and email newsletter about Power Management ICs and Data Communication ICs by IMP, Inc. send an email to Commands@listserve.com with in the body: subscribe IMP_eNews

Power Supply

Where	Manufacturer
www.acopian.com/	Acopian
www.advpower.com/	Advanced Power Solutions
www.apcc.com/	American Power Conversion APC
www.astec.com/	Astec America
www.computerproducts.com/	Computer Products Corp
www.condorpower.com/	Condor Power
www.interpoint-power.com/	Interpoint
www.kepcopower.com/	Kepco
www.lambdapower.com/	Lambda Electronics
www.oryxpower.com/	Oryx Power Inc
www.power-one.com/	Power-One
www.unitrode.com/	Unitrode
www.vero-usa.com/	VERO Electronics <vero@iit.de>
www.vicr.com/	Vicor

PPP

Serial Protocol for the Internet, successor to SLIP*

theory.cs.uni-bonn.de/ppp/

FAQ

Printer

Where	Manufacturer
www.usa.canon.com/	Canon

Processor

local	Processor history texts on the WWW
www.techonline.com	Technical catalog of EDN

See also CPU, MCU and MPU.

Program (computer-)

www.howstuffworks.com/program.htm

How it works

Programmer

Besides being a human that writes programs it's a device to program ((E)E)PROM*'s.

local	Programmer manufacturers
local	NM93C46 programmer
www.willem.org/	Free EPROM* programmer schematics?

In the last 3 month I had a problem with the program space of the 32K module of several MC68HC916X1 microcontrollers. After several weeks of operation time the application shuts down and couldn't restart. After checking the system I found out, that parts of the program space are erased. After reprogramming the system works fine. Than the same mistake could takes place after 1 day or 4 weeks.

Is that in EPROM* or EEPROM? Not all EPROM* programming methods are as solid as others. There are certain fast methods that aren't reliable enough (we experienced). After a while we used the slower methods instead. Basically the fast method consists of pulsing the data in several times and checking till the bit has flipped from 1 to 0, after that a couple of extra pulses are given to be 'well enough' above the threshold.
Complications are however that there may be a regression to it's former state and that this seems to be worse when the part has just been erased. Our policy was to use erased parts only for internal usage and use new parts for products. Usually it's advised to leave erased parts alone for 24 hours before reusage.
When your parts are in sockets, as I assume, also beware of corrosion etc. especially in a hostile industrial environment.
Perhaps as a test, solder a part in without socket...

Programming language

A language to program a computer, processor or controller in.

At first one had to program the computers using switches with which the binary code for each instruction was entered into each address by hand.
Then assembler was invented and programmers could write programs using mnemonics for the instructions and symbolic names for the locations.
Then Fortran was invented which made the language independent from the underlying computer. For business purposes Cobol was invented.
Fortran wasn't very elegant (nor powerful) so Algol was designed.
Algol was a very heavy language which needed very powerful compilers so the very simple languages BCPL and B were designed. The language B was the inspiration for the language C which is still heavily used and formed the basis for C++, Java, Javascript and most other modern languages.
In the mean time Wirth also tried to make a much more simple Algol and called it Pascal and later Modula. Pascal became very popular thanks to Borland and it's now part of Delphi.
BASIC was a kind of language for everyman and it became the first language of choice for the homecomputers because it was interpreted and didn't need a compiler. It also had inbuild primitive editting possibilities because the lines were numbered.
ADA was an attempt by the American Defense Department to standardize all their software. However ADA compilers were so complicated to write that the language never became very popular.
Forth is a language that is being interpreted, but the programmer is forced to think in terms of the stack which isn't easy and seems to result in unreadable programs (for humans). Since the language is expendable there are many versions around.
Lisp is also a stack oriented language but has many high-level commands which makes it very useful for AI programs. It's also quite unreadable.
I can't recall the name of the first object oriented language on which C++ and Java were based later.
Other languages were PL/1, Snobol.
Newer languages are ABC (educational), Eifel, Python.

See also:

www.catseye.mb.ca/lala/

Language Lab

Project kits

local	Manufacturers
members.ozemail.com.au/~bobpar/	Bob Parker

Protection circuit

ftp.psyber.com/tcj/faqs/protect.faq	FAQ
news:sci.electronics.design.misc	Newsgroup

Prototype

Where	Manufacturer
www.vectorelect.com/	Vector Electronics

PSD

A Programmable System Device is a configurable memory system on a chip for embedded systems.

See:

www.psdst.com/html/whatisflash.html	at ST (formerly by Waferscale)
www.psdst.com/	main page there
www.silicon-concepts.com/wsi/wsi_content.htm	at distributor

PSpice

PSpice is PC-based software to emulate the behaviour of electronic circuits.

www.industrycommunity.com/myforum/moazzam_mahmood/index.html

This forum helps to find specific PSpice Models developed by vendors or individuals.

See also Spice and VHDL.

Pull-up

See Open-collector output.

Besides what is discussed there. Pull-up's are also useful to detect the status of jumpers and DIP-switches...

PWM

Pulse width modulation is generating a square wave with variable length up and down durations. Usually a single up+down period is of constant length, but the so called duty-cycle (the up-period) varies. When you look at the power contents of the signal compared to the voltage of the low state it will vary over time as the duty cycle varies. When you integrate the value over time, using for example just a resistor (in series) and a capacitor (in parallel) you'll have an analogue value which you can use as if it came out of an DAC. In fact you've created a very cheap serial DAC. Timer/counters of MCU's can usually generate PWM signals quite easily. Of course you can only use the signal for slow speed applications like controling the amplification of an amplifier or the brightness of a lightsource etc. but it can be very useful. Consider however that when the MCU might fail, the signal may go high or low, so make sure the signal will not damage anything (like people's ears when the signal is used to drive an audio amplifier: Been there, done that. ;-).

www.esacademy.com/myacademy/classdescription.php?classid=17

Online training: Motor Control using PWM