What are abbreviations used in electrical engineering?

Question

This question is meant to be a glossary of abbreviations used in electrical engineering.

Some abbreviations are very common and universal, and are therefore acceptable to use on this site. Others are quite localized or pet abbreviations used by individuals without a wide following, so are not acceptable on this site. One purpose of this question is to list all abbreviations so that others have a chance to decode them if encountered, but thru voting also show which ones are acceptable to use in a wide international context or not.

So here are some rules to make this question work:

1. Each answer must only be for ONE abbreviation.

2. This will be community wiki, so only ONE answer for each abbreviation. If you want to expand on a description, edit the existing answer for that abbreviation.

3. This is going to get long, so consistant formatting will help. For each answer (abbreviation), start with just the abbreviation within HTML "h1" and "/h1" tags on a line by itself.

4. Upvote answers for abbreviations you think would be acceptable to use in a post on this site without any expansion or explanation.

5. Downvote abbreviations (answers) you think should not be used "bare" on this site. This will be community-wiki, so nobody will loose reputation as a result. In this special case, you are voting on the universality of the abbreviation, not on the quality of the writeup. If you don't like the write up, fix it instead.

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INDEX

A - A(2) AC(7) ADC(15) ALU(3) AM(7) ASCII(12) ASIC(6) ASK(1) AWG(7)

B - BCD(5) BJT(16) BLDC(4) BNC(6) BPF(1) BW(3)

C - CAD(5) CAN(7) CC(1) CC-II(-1) CCCS(1) CCD(6) CMOS(16) CMRR(1) COG(0) CPLD(4) CPM(-1) CPU(7) CRO(-1)

D - DAC(15) DC(7) DEMUX(2) DFT(2) DIP(5) DLL(2) DMA(7) DRC(3) DSO(3) DSP(13) DTFT(0) DVD(-10) DVM/DMM(4)

E - ECL(4) EDA(6) EE(7) EEPROM(13) EMC(3) EMS(-7) EOS(0) EPROM(3) ESD(9)

F - F(2) FDNR(-3) FET(17) FFC(2) FFT(6) FIFO/LIFO(7) FM(7) FPGA(9) FSK(1) FSM(4)

G - GBW(5) GIC(-1) GND(16) GPIO(9) GPS(4)

H - H(2) HDTV(-11) HF(4) hFE(2) HPF(2) HVSP(-1) Hz(3)

I - i(-1) I/P(-7) I2S(1) IC(11) IF(4) IFT(1) IGBT(9) IGFET(0) ISP(4) I²C(13)

J - j(-1) JFET(10) JTAG(7)

K - KCL(6) KVL(6)

L - LCD(17) LED(19) LF(3) LPF(4) LSB, MSB(2) LUT(5) LVD(-1) LVDS(5) LVDT(0) LVS(-2)

M - MCU(6) MEMS(6) MIDI(4) MOSFET(17) MPU(-1) ms(2) MUX(6)

N - NEXT(-6) NPN(12) NTSC(0) NVM(0)

O - O/P(-7) OCXO(2) OLED(4) OP-AMP(8) OTA(3)

P - P-P(0) PAL (logic)(2) PAL (television)(0) PC(-1) PCB(17) PCBA(-5) PCM(4) PFM(-2) PIC(0) PID(9) PLL(9) PM(0) , duplicate(0) PNP(14) POR(3) PPM(-1) PSK(5) PUT(-1) PWM(24)

Q - QM(-6) QVGA(0)

R - RADAR(0) RAM(12) RF(5) RFID(6) RGB(4) RJ45(6) ROM(3) RTL (discrete logic)(2) RTL (Verilog)(2)

S - SAW(3) SCR(9) SD,SDHC(0) SDCC(-3) SMA(4) SMPS(9) SMT(5) SNR(5) SOC/SoC(5) SPI(13) SPICE(8) SRAM(6) SRPP(-2) STA(0)

T - TBH(-8) TCXO(2) THD(6) TRF(-1) TTL(10) TVS(4)

U - UART(12) UHF(4) UJT(0) UL(3) USART(4) USB(4)

V - V(2) VCA(1) VCC / VEE / VDD / VSS(14) VCCS(1) VCO(5) VCXO(3) VFD(3) VGA(-2) VHDL(7) VHF(5) VLSI(2) VNL,VFL(-1) VSWR(4)

W - W(2)

X - XO(1) XOR(3) XTAL(5)

Ω - Ω(0)

_{186 answers - Sun May 11 09:17:28 2014 (CET)}

Answer 1

TTL

Transistor-Transistor Logic

Answer 2

FPGA

Field-Programmable Gate Array A type of programmable logic device that uses LUTs (Look Up Table) to implement complex logic.

Answer 3

CAN

Controller area network, a message-based serial protocol with differential signaling.

tag wiki for can

Answer 4

PID

Proportional, Integral, Derivative. A type of controller used in control systems.

Answer 5

VHDL

VHSIC Hardware Description Language

where VHSIC is Very High Speed Integrated Circuit

Answer 6

SPICE

Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis

Answer 7

IGBT

Insulated Gate Bipolar transistor. A device that combines the high impedance input characteristics of a MOSFET with the high current output capabilities of a BJT.

Answer 8

DC

Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge.

Answer 9

AC

Alternating current is the flow of electric charge that periodically reverses direction.

Answer 10

ASIC

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit

Answer 11

JTAG

Joint Test Action Group

also used to describe the serial interface defined by this group

Answer 12

AWG

American Wire Gauge, a wire gauge standard widely used in North America.

Answer 13

BNC

Bayonet Neill–Concelman connector; a miniture quick-connect/disconnect RF coaxial connector

Answer 14

FIFO/LIFO

FIFO: First-In, First-Out (a queue)

LIFO: Last-In, First-Out (a stack)

Answer 15

FM

Short for "Frequency Modulation"

Answer 16

MUX

A multiplexer is a device that selects one of several analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input into a single line.

Answer 17

FFT

An algorithm that rapidly computes the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) of a periodic signal. FFT is very commonly used to mean the DFT, the output of the FFT algorithm.

See also: DFT, DTFT/CTFT, IFT

Answer 18

EDA

Electronic Design Automation. A set of tools made to design electronic circuits. Wiki

Answer 19

DMA

Direct-Memory Access, used for high-throughput interfaces in digital systems

Answer 20

SRAM

Static Random Access Memory

Answer 21

RFID

Radio Frequency Identification

Answer 22

SNR

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Answer 23

USB

Universal Serial Bus

Answer 24

LVDS

Low voltage differential signalling -- commonly used for high-speed digital communications and lcd display interfaces

Answer 25

RJ45

Registered Jack 45. A famous one of the long list of registered jacks since it is used for most ethernets. It has 8 pins, connected to four twisted pair in common ethernet wiring.

Answer 26

THD

Total Harmonic Distortion, which is a measure of how much noise is introduced as a result of non-linear processes.

Answer 27

MCU

microcontroller. a small computer on a IC.

Notice: a small computer Not a processor. then it containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals

Answer 28

AM

Short for "Amplitude Modulation"

Answer 29

EE

• Electronics Engineer(ing)
• Electrical Engineer(ing)

Answer 30

CCD

Charge-Coupled Device, used to describe some imaging devices