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ABC of electronics terms

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

P

Packaging

Panel

Parallel port

See local.

Patent

PC

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

See local.

PC-Card

PCI

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

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

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 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

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!

Perl

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

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

Phasing error

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

More about this

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

Physics

PIC

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

FAQ in text

PIC16c84 programmer

Piezo

Pinnacles

Plant Automation

Plastic

PLC

www.puffinplc.org/

open source Linux PLC project

PLD

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

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

Portable phone

www.worldofcellularsecrets.com/

www.worldofcellularsecrets.com/news.htm

Ports (on PC)

Power IC

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

PPP

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

FAQ

Printer

Processor

See also CPU, MCU and MPU.

Program (computer-)

Programmer

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

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

Protection circuit

Prototype

PSD

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

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

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

PWM

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

Online training: Motor Control using PWM