Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [terminology]

Terminology is the studying of the terms used to identify things. In electronics, just like any other complex human endeavour, using the proper terms helps in understanding.

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What does the term "bias" mean?

I've see a number of terms that make reference to the word "bias". I've read the wikipedia article but I'm after are more practical answer. Some examples of what a forward or reverse biased device is would also be well received.
Brad
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Interesting/Unusual/Old Electronics nomenclature

I've recently been transliterating some old schematics for a friend of mine (Basically taking paper schematics from the 40s and drawing them in a modern EDA package) and have come across some very interesting/old electronics terms that are not in…
Connor Wolf
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Why are capacitor sizes rarely expressed in nanofarads?

Many capacitance values occurring in electronic circuits can be conveniently expressed in nanofarads, e.g. "a 10nF decoupling capacitor" . However, the use of the term "nanofarads" or its abbreviation "nF" is often avoided and instead the…
realtime
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What is the etymology of 'plane' e.g. data plane, control plane, etc.?

My guess would be aviation (used as an analogy), but I find no source for this. Data plane was being used as early as 1965 (e.g. in this paper) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4038491 "the planes prepared by the factory must anticipate…
Ben
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What are sacrificial components?

The circuit diagram of a board I'm working on has parts labelled as "sacrificial components". These components seem to be pairs of probe points connected via a capacitor, and connected to nothing else. What are these "sacrificial components"? What…
Randomblue
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Was the term "shield" in use [for daughterboards] before arduino became popular?

The first time I heard the term "shield" in connection with arduino [some years back], I had to google it. So, I'm curious if this term—which seem to me to translate roughly as "daughterboard" in pre-arduino terminology—was in use [roughly with this…
the gods from engineering
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What is the definition of "cathode"?

According to Wikipedia's definition, a cathode is "an electrode through which electric current flows out of a polarized electrical device". However, the direction of current flow is purely an arbitrary convention, and is in fact the opposite…
Roman Starkov
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What is the terminology for the opposite of the "active" state?

I'll keep it simple: The two states are called HIGH and LOW (and in some cases HIGH-Z, but not relevant here) For ACTIVE-HIGH signals, the state HIGH corresponds to the ACTIVE state; How would you call the state LOW? Maybe in this case, instead of…
Marko Gulin
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What does the word "characterize" mean in an EE context?

UPDATE: The key distinction I think I was missing was that characterization happens on the bench (as opposed to on an engineering pad or with a computer simulation). It is empirical. There are other important notions in the background, like we want…
scanny
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What is an Elegant Breadboard

There are quite a few documents on the internet which use the term Elegant BreadBoard (EBB) with no explanation of what it actually is. I've been trawling the net trying to find out the difference between an EBB and a normal breadboard to no avail.…
cup
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How is the word "kilohm" pronounced traditionally?

Had to ask this in electronics, would like to hear this from people who have been involved. I am not a native English speaker, and I couldn't find a definitive answer online: there are too many variants that looked odd to me. There probably should…
Jimmy Falcon
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What is Full scale deflection?

On wikipedia In analog systems, full scale may be defined by the maximum voltage available, or the maximum deflection (full scale deflection or FSD) or indication of an analog instrument such as a moving coil meter or galvanometer. So, is FSD is…
kyb
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What does "load" mean and what are the different types?

What are all the different types of "load" and what are the key important facts to know about each?
Brad
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Electronic vs. Electronics Engineering

As a non-native English speaker, I am always torn between writing/saying, "I have a degree in Electronic Engineering" vs. "Electronics Engineering". I have heard the Electronics Engineering is correct since Electronics is a subject, in the same way…
Rubem Pacelli
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LED size nomenclature

Round LEDs are often indicated by "T-1" for 3mm LEDs or "T-1 3/4" for 5mm LEDs. What does the "T" mean, and how should I read other indications like this when I encounter them? "T" doesn't seem to fit neither mm nor inches.
Federico Russo
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