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CAD
Definition: Abbreviation for Computer Aided Design. Most often referring to the program used to create renderings of structures and products.
CAN
Definition: Controller Area Network - an international standard according to ISO 11898.
Capacitor
Definition: A passive component composed of two plates that are separated by an insulating dielectric. The capacitor functions when voltage is applied to the plates, this causes an electric field across the dielectric which results in the plates accumulating a charge.
Capacitance
Definition: The amount of charge that can be stored at a given voltage. Referred to as C and is measured in Farads.
CAT3
Definition: An ethernet cable that satisfies the criteria for data transfer speeds of up to 10Mbps.
CAT5
Definition: An ethernet cable that satisfies the criteria for data transfer speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Charged Coupled Device (CCD)
Definition: An image sensor used in digital cameras. The sensor is enabled when it is struck by light through the camera's lens. The pixels that make up the CCD convert the light into electrons. The accumulation of electrons (charge at each pixel) is later measured and converted to a value.
CDMA
Definition: Code Division Multiple Access is a digital mobile technology that uses the full available spectrum to encode conversations with a pseudo-random digital sequence. Unlike systems that use TDMA, CDMA does not assign a specific frequency to each user.
Channel
Definition: one of several signal paths on a switching card.
Channel Crosstalk
Definition: coupling of a signal from one channel to another or to the output by stray capacitance, coupling or radiation.
Charge Injection
Definition: A parameter used in analog switches. Injects a charge from the digital control to the analog signal path.
Chip (Component)
Definition: A semiconductor that uses multiple transistors and other components to process operations. Components are all interconnected on a single piece of semi-conductive material.
Circuit Board
Definition: A thin rigid board containing an electric circuit - a printed circuit. Components can be mounted or etched on top of the board to display the system.
Class A Amplifier
Definition: Simplest type of amplifier, class A amplifiers consists of output transistors that conduct the output signal waveform. They do not fully turn off. Relation = high linearity but low efficiency.
Class B Amplifier
Definition: Class B Amplifiers consist of output transistors that only conduct during half of the signal waveform. To reach max signal amplification, two transistors are used. One conducts positive output signals while the other conducts the negative outputs.
Class AB Amplifier
Definition: An amplifier that combines both class A and B amplifiers. Though this method, efficiency is higher than Class A but there is lower distortion than class B.
Clock Jitter
Definition: A periodic waveform where expected wave "crossing" is varied and not ideal. The variations are called jitters.
Common Mode Rejection Ration
Definition: common mode rejection ration specifies how well an instrument rejects noise signals that appear between both input high and input low and chassis ground.
Contact Bounce
Definition: the intermittent and undesired opening of relay contacts during closure.
Converter (Boost)
Definition: A power supply that steps an input voltage up (boosts it) to a higher, regulated voltage.
CODEC
Definition: Any technology for compression and decompressing data. Codes are commonly found in software, hardware or a combination of both. Popular CODECS can be found in video players and converters.
Coherent Sampling
Definition: The sampling of a periodic signal. An integer number of its cycle will fit into a corresponding sampling window.
COLC
Definition: Correction loop capacitor.
Coulomb
Definition: Standard of measure for electrical charge. Coulombs (C) are the amount of charge transported by a one amp current in one second.
Crosspoint
Definition: the intersecting point of a column and row in a relay matrix.
Current Surge Limiting
Definition: the circuitry necessary to protect relay contacts from excessive transient current.
Cycle Redundancy Check
Definition: Often referred as CRC, is a check value calculated from the data gathered to catch most transmission errors. Top of the line CRCs contain enough data that they allow the correct data to be applied.
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