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ABC of electronics terms

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

I

I2C*

I2S

IDE

IDE (Hard disk bus standard)

The reason it's called Integrated Device Electronics is cause most of the goo needed to make the drive talk is integrated into the drive. In contrast with the ST506 days when the controller and drive BIOS were on a separate card. The design was made to be better, cheaper and more upgradeable. There's more the drive manufacturer can play with to suit themselves, such as packing more sectors in the outer cylinders, caching and upping speeds, without affecting the rest of the system.
I believe it was a Micropolis invention, but my memory is getting a little rusty here.
Bill
Roger Barraud later suggested that it was invented by Quantum.
Someone from Electronics 2000 in Australia (international computer company, I think) recalls that the first ones they could buy came from Miniscribe, were 40 Mbyte in size and used a 8051 MCU*.
Miniscribe was later swallowed up by Maxtor who then used the factory to produce the infamous turn it on and see if it will boot this time 7040 and 7080 drives. They had no solid connectors between the drive and the controller board but landing pads on each side with a rubber connector with vertical metal strips in it. Press together job to make the connection. The problem with these was the expansion and contraction of the rubber with temperature breaking the bond (just after warranty of course).

ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) for CD-ROM, SFF 8020I

• Global Engineering Documents
• 15 Inverness Way East
• Englewood, CO 80112-5704
• tel: +1-800-854-7179
• tel: +1-303-792-2181
• fax: +1-303-397-2740

Book:

General sites:

See also:

• ATAPI
• Hard Disk Drive
• SCSI*

IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

See also the chapters Assembler, Disassembler, Emulator and Simulator. These things are also called SDK (Software Development Kit), when it's for developing software for specific hardware.

IEC

Standards commission. For example: IEC-601 is a well recognized international EMC and/or electrical safety standard suite.

IEEE

They establish electrical standards among other things.
See www.ieee.org/

IEEE 1284

IEEE 1394

Image Sensor

Inductor

InfraRed

See also IRDA, local.

Instruction Set

Instrument

Insulator

Internet

Also see Internet.

IPI

IRDA

• www.irda.org/
• See also InfraRed

ISA

ISA Bus Specification P996

IEEE Service Center

445 Hoes Lane

PO Box 1331

Piscataway, New Jersey 08855

See also EISA

Another interesting source of information on ISA is the documentation from various support chipset manufacturers. The quality varies, but they usually define ISA signals, supply timing diagrams, provide AC specs, etc. Ask you local distributor for datasheets on as many different products as you can get.

For example:

• 82420/82430 PCIset ISA and EISA Bridges
• Intel
• order # 290483-002

is one I have handy, and may still be available. This is for a chip that converts signals between PCI* and ISA. As a byproduct, you get documentation on ISA signals.

RadiSys sells chipsets for embedded applications. Our datasheets cover these signals, but the quantity and quality of documentation is poorer than what is found in Solari. We can't afford to write a book for every chipset we make. You can find our stuff at www.radisys.com/.

AT Bus Design

Solari

ISDN

Lots of books about ISDN.

ISO

www.iso.org/

See also ANSI, CCITT, CEN, DIN, IEEE, NEN

ISO 9000