ABC of electronics terms

Click on the first letter of the electronic term you're looking for:
0..9	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z

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

T

TCP/IP

The main protocol of the internet.

www.itprc.com/tcpipfaq/	FAQ at ITPRC
www.private.org.il/	Uri Raz about TCP/IT
www.esacademy.com/myacademy/classes/descriptions/tcpip.htm	Online Training: Introduction to TCP/IP

Telecom

nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca/pub/cookbook/telecom/

Circuit examples

See ATM
See DTMF
See ISDN

Telephone

local

about connecting to a telephone line

www.chipdir.nl/amazon/chipdir.php?mode=books&searchtype=KeywordSearch&search=telephone

Teletext

Way of transmitting ASCII text (~) together with television picture data using the invisible top lines of the image.

SAA5191	Teletext video processor
SAA5231	Teletext video processor
SAA5246A	Integrated VIP and teletext (IVT1.0)
SAA5249	Integrated VIP and teletext with Background Memory Controller (IVT1.1BMCX)
SAA5250	Interface for data acquisition and control (for multi-standard teletext systems)
SAA5254	Integrated VIP and teletext decoder (IVT1.1X)
SAA5281	Integrated Video input processor and teletext decoder (IVT1.8*)
SAA5290	One-page Economy teletext/TV microcontroller (ETT1.1)
SAA5x9x	Economy teletext and TV microcontrollers

www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/teaching/tt-ap/

complete design of teletext processor

www.tk.uni-linz.ac.at/~simon/private/i2c/ Teletext decoder project by Simon Vogl

Television

Books:

title	order at Amazon USA	price indication
Television IC* Data Files, Pal ed.	ISBN: 0750628995	$30
Television Microprocessor IC* Data Files	ISBN: 0750633352	$30

Temperature

Temperature ranges for ceramic packages:

Commercial	0C .. 70C
Industrial or Extended	-40C .. 85C
Automotive	-40C .. 125C
Mil. Spec.	-55C .. 125C

local	Low temperature or vacuum design?
www.omega.com/	Every type of temperature measuring device imaginable

Terminal Block

Where	Manufacturer
www.buss-components.com/ - gone?	Bussmann Circuits

Terminal Program

A program that emulates a terminal on your PC (or other computer).

To talk to your embedded project you'll have to have some terminal program running on your PC (or other computer).
This computer can also compile/assemble/link/download the program your wanting to test.
Some development systems have part of their user interface in a dedicated terminal program and treat the RS-232 line more as a network connection. This doesn't make things much simpler generally.
When your embedded project (or it's development board) also has a network connection you can use this for downloading and connectiong.
Sometimes you can also use other busses like an SCSI-bus, but RS-232 is generally the simplest first step, because handling a UART is quite easy. (First polled and later interrupt driven when necessary.)

You can for example use the terminal program from Windows, CU (Connect Unix) and Kermit.
There is also a source for a VT100 terminal somewhere around (try the Simtel www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/ archives for example, the name is cvt100.zip) or email me.
Among the more professional terminal programs I prefered Procom for DOS and later Telix for DOS.
For Windows 3.1 I prefer VT-220 from Dart Communications <sales@dart.com>, but I use this with winsock, so I don't know if it's as good when you dial in or even if you can use it directly on an RS-232 line.

PowerVT is now shipping version 3.0, which is available for both 32- and 16-bit environments.
It supports VT 320/220/100/52/ and TTY, and it does direct connections, dial-up and telnet, as well as file transfer via telnet.
We've added tons of features and enhancements since 1994, too.
There's more information on it at our homepage (www.dart.com/) as well as a trial if you're interested!

Test Equipment

Manufacturers:

Where	Manufacturer
www.go2dexis.com/	Dexis, refurbished products for commercial and personal use
www.digicast-technologies.com/	Solutions for digital broadcast chain, including MPEG-2 DVB audio video quality of service monitoring solutions.
www.emodus.com/	Emodus
www.agilent.com/tm/indelec/English/	Agilent (used to part of HP)
www.lecroy.com/	LeCroy, good but expensive
www.picotech.com/	Pico* Technology
www.tek.com/	Tektronix
www.telulex.com/	Telulex
www.wavetek.com/	Wavetek

Information:

www.testandmeasurement.com/

Test and Measurement (by VerticalNet)

Test Fixturing

Where	Manufacturer
www.ectinfo.com/	Everett Charles

Thyristor

A Thyristor is a four junction (pnpn from the top down I think) device. It's effect is that once triggered, it turns into a latching diode. A bit crude, but they pass an awful whack of current, are good at high voltage, and survive abuse. When you reverse bias it, it goes off. Uses are only limited by your imagination, but generally are as follows: motor control circuits; crowbar circuits (A short across the supply rails to blow the fuse and prevent your circuit dropping it's trousers publicly ;-); Some power supplies; anywhere you need to switch big current, or you need the latching effect. A thyristor only works when the anode is positive, and the gate negative.
Declan

Tilt

Tilt sensors

See here.

Time

The fourth dimension.

GMT	Greenwich Mean Time	Misleading term because in Greenwich they use English time so including summer time
UTC	Coordinated Universal Time	The new term for GMT
TAI	International Atomic Time
CET	Central European Time
MET	Middle European Time
ECT	East Coast (of the USA) time	?
WCT	West Coast (of the USA) time	?
Beat	a 1000'th of a day, as defined by Swatch

Touchscreen

Companies:

www.generaltouch.com/

General Touch

TRAC

Total Reconfigurable Analog Circuit

www.fas.co.uk/
See also: FPAA.

Transducer

Where	Manufacturer
www.pui.com/	Projects Unlimited

Transformer

Where	Manufacturer
www.coilcraft.com/	Coilcraft
www.coiltronics.com/	Coiltronics
www.delevan.com/	Delevan
www.premmag.com/	PREM Magnetics, Inc
www.tokin.com/	Tokin Corp
www.tokoam.com/	Toko America
www.vacuumschmelze.de/	ISDN transformers, chokes and more
www.valorinc.com/	Valor Electronics
www.ycl.com/	YCL USA

Transient voltage suppressor

www.americanmicrosemi.com/tutorials/transientvoltagesupressor.htm

Transistor

A transistor can be a discrete part with three pins, but it's also the basic element for building chips.
There are basically two kinds:

The normal PNP or NPN transistor
Field Effect Transistor (FET*)

The PNP and NPN both contain three layers and are basically current amplifiers, while the FET* (my favorite) is a voltage amplifier. Besides being analog (non-linear) amplifiers they can also be used as switches and this is how they are commonly used in digital chips. Recently (199911) a new much smaller transistor, the FinFET, has been invented which can be made upto 40 times smaller than the conventional transistor.

Manufacturers:

Where	Manufacturer
www.aci-elec.com/	ACI Electronics Corp.
www.macom.com/	M/A-COM
www.lucent.com/minds/transistor/	Over 50 years of transistors - by the inventors
www.semicoa.com/	Semicoa Semiconductors
www.semi-tech-inc.com/	Semiconductor Technology, Inc.
www.electronic-repair.com/	DOS based electronics database with lots of transistors

Cross references:

local	More about transistors on this site
www.moyerelectronics.com/	Moyer Electronics
www.pacificsemi.com/CROSSREF.ZIP	40.000 transistor cross references
http://softseek.zdnet.com/.../	Transistor Substitution Database by Computer Services Plus (Shareware)
www.systemsinfo.com/	Keyboard System's Cross Reference Master (for organ and keyboard parts)
www.ecgproducts.com/	ECG sells a lot of cross parts
www.nteinc.com/	NTE also sells a lot of cross parts
www.sound.au.com/trans.htm	Abridged Transistor Specifications - data of many common transistors
www.sound.au.com/download.htm	ESP-SEMI - a small program to find transistor data, over 1400 transistor types listed, includes also text file format of the specifications
www.powinv.com/	Power Innovations Product Portfolio - power components with BD, BU, BUL, R, TIC, TIP, TIPL, TISP, Y and EL prefixes
www.st.com/stonline/books/	SGS-Thomson Microelectronics Datasheets - very large collection of discrete component datasheets
www.st.com/stonline/books/ascii/docs/3649.htm	SGS Thomson Bipolar Transistor Cross Reference
http://members.nbci.com/.../sigtransistors.html	Defpom Signal Transistor Cross Reference - RF small signal transistor cross reference chart
www.ee.washington.edu/.../cross.html	Transistor Cross Reference Database - This database currently has over 40,000 transistors in it which can be cross-referenced to other parts.
www.microelectr.com.hk/datasheet/	Transistor Datasheets from Micro* Electronics

Triac

A Triac is two thyristors back to back to give the same effect with both sides of an AC waveform with the one device. Used in motor controls, power supplies, and 'solid state' relays. They have the reputation of being a bit unreliable, and failing. My experience is that they are (expletive deleted) difficult to get working in the first place!
Declan

www.americanmicrosemi.com/tutorials/triac.htm

Tri-state

Tri-state means that an output port has three possible states: 0V, 5V and high-impedance. During that last state it doesn't drive it's output. This is useful when another device may also be allowed to take over the line, in which case the current device may even switch it's port to an input state so it can read the line. Data lines in processor systems are good example of these kinds of tri-state lines. (Address lines are also tri-state if the system uses DMA* or has otherwise multiple processors on the same address bus.)

See also the related subject open-collector output.

TSR

Terminate and Stay Resident.

This is mechanism under DOS whereby a program stops running, but stays in memory. During startup they have linked them selves to certain events like hardware interrupts or system calls from other programs and will generally act as drivers. They are mostly started up from the batch files config.sys or autoexec.bat

TTL

Transistor Transistor Logic
But we hardly use TTL anymore, since CMOS* has become as fast and uses much less energy and has become as cheap. Most of the former TTL devices, the famous 7400 range, is now being produced in CMOS* as HCT* (High Speed CMOS*).
HCT* is very compatible with TTL but you shouldn't leave inputs open and you can't use the 74HCT04 as an oscillator (buffer), use the 74HCU04 instead!

TTL types (HCT*, LS* etc.)

Tube

The predecessor of the transistor.

They are outdated now except for a couple of areas of usage:

As CRT* (cathode ray tube), the actual viewing device in TV's and (computer) monitors.
As X-Ray tube.
Instead of transistors in audio amplifiers, because they create a 'warmer' sound.
Perhaps they are also still used in prefessional TV-studio camera's, but probably not.

Where	Manufacturer
home.wxs.nl/~frank.philipse/frank/	Frank's Electron Tube Pages, complete	Netherlands
www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/	Frank's Electron Tube Pages, datasheets only	Poland
frank.nostalgiaair.org/index.html	Frank's Electron Tube Pages, datasheets only	USAA
frank.pocnet.net/	Frank's Electron Tube Pages, datasheets only	Germany
www.audiohot.com/Frank/	Frank's Electron Tube Pages, datasheets only	China
www.ginko.de/user/franz.hamberger/	Electron Tube and Valve Charts and more

Tunnel diode and back diode

www.americanmicrosemi.com/tutorials/tunneldiode.htm

Two-Tone Paging Signals

Many public safety pagers and control systems use audio tones to activate. The most common type are two tones that are sent in sequence. Hence it's names, Two-Tone Paging or Two-Tone Sequential.

www.genave.com/two-tone_paging.htm

Explanation at Genave

Click on the first letter of the electronic term you're looking for:
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