Glossary

A

API

Application Programming Interface: set of defined rules that explain how applications (or computers) communicate with one another. APIs are placed between applications and web servers, acting as intermediary layer that processes data transfer between systems.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character encoding scheme that encodes special characters from keyboards and converts them to 7-bit binary integers that can be recognized by a number of programs and devices. ASCII charts are very helpful when working with serial terminals and hexadecimal values.

B

Baud Rate

Baud Rate is the integer value indicating how fast the data is being transmitted and received. All the links in a chain of communication have to be “speaking” at the same speed, otherwise data will be misinterpreted by one end. 9600 is the standard rate.

C

CE

Chip Enabled: a synonymous for SS or CS pin. See SPI protocol.

CRC

Cyclic Redundancy Check: error-detecting code commonly used in digital networks and storage devices to detect accidental changes to digital data. Blocks of data entering these systems get a short check value attached, based on the remainder of a polynomial division of their contents. On retrieval, the calculation is repeated and, in the event the check values do not match, corrective action can be taken against data corruption.

Docs: wikipedia.org

CRUD

Create, Read, Update and Delete are the basic operations that can be performed over a database.

I

I2C

Inter-integrated Circuit: communications protocol common in microcontroller-based systems for interfacing with sensors, memory devices and LCDs.

It is a synchronous protocol that only requires SDA and SCL pins to work.

Docs: teachmemicro.com

L

LCD

Liquid Cristal Display: a flat-panel display that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers.

LED

Light Emitting Diode produce a narrow-band of visible or infrared light. It is extremely efficient at converting electrical energy into light or infrared radiation.

M

MISO

Master Input/Slave Output: line for a slave device to send data to the master device. See SPI protocol.

MOSI

Master Output/Slave Input: line for a master device to send data to the slave device. See SPI protocol.

MCU

Microcontroller Unit: semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) that consists of a processor unit, memory modules, communication interfaces and peripherals.

MQTT

Message Queue Telemetry Transport: TCP-based protocol relying on the publish-subscribe model. It is suitable for enabling communication between IoT devices.

N

NUID

Nucleotide Universal Identifier: uniquely and globally identify oligonucleotide microarray probes.

The same microarray may have different identifiers between manufacturers and sometimes the same identifier is reused and represents a completely different oligonucleotide, resulting in ambiguity and potentially mis-identification of the genes hybridizing to that probe. It makes data interpretation and integration of different batches of data difficult.

NUID is a unique, non-degenerate encoding scheme that can be used as a universal representation to identify an oligonucleotide across manufacturers.

Docs: wikipedia.org

P

PICC

Proximity Integrated Circuit Cards: a standardized model of a card that serves as a reference device for compliance testing of commercial readers and acts as a model for commercial card’s ICs (Integrated Circuits) during antenna coil optimization.

PWM

Pulse Width Modulation: technique for getting analog results with digital means. Digital control is used to create a square wave. This on-off pattern can simulate voltages in between the full VCC of the (Arduino) board by changing the portion of the time the signal spends ON versus the time that the signal spends OFF. The duration of on time is called the pulse width. To get varying analog values, you need to modulate that pulse width. If you repeat this on-off pattern fast enough with (for example) an LED, the result is as if the signal is a steady voltage between 0 and VCC controlling the brightness of the LED.

Docs: Basics of PWM

R

REST API

Representational State Transfer API maps CRUD operations to HTTP methods.

RFID

Radio Frequency Identification: uses radio frequency wireless technology to electronically carrying the identification information from an RFID tag to its reader.

Docs: what-is-rfid

RTC

Real-Time Clock maintains accurate time within embedded systems even when the main power is off.

Docs: microchip.com

RX

Receiver, Data Input or RXI. The RX line receive data. It should be hooked up to the TX line of the device with which it would like to communicate.

S

SDA

Serial Data Line: pin required in I2C communication protocol.

SCK

Serial Clock Line: pin required in SPI communication protocols.

SCL

Serial Clock Line: pin required in I2C communication protocol.

SPI

Serial Peripheral Interface: high-speed synchronous serial input and output (I/O) port that allows a serial bit stream of programmed length (one to 16 bits) to be shifted into and out of the device at a programmed bit-transfer rate.

SPI is normally used for communications between the MCU controller and external peripherals or another controller.

It is a synchronous protocol that requires SS, SCK, MISO and MOSI pins to work.

Docs: corelis.com and circuitbasics.com

SS/CS

Slave Select/Chip Select: line for a master device to select which slave to send data to. See SPI protocol.

T

TCP

Transmission Control Protocol: the protocol that complemented the Internet Protocol (IP), it provides reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of a stream of bytes between applications running on hosts communicating via an IP network. Major internet applications such as WWW (World Wide Web), email and file transfer rely on TCP, which is part of the Transport Layer of the TCP/IP suite.

TTY

Teletypewriter or teletype. There were electromechanical typewriters used to enter information to the terminal When working with terminals on Mac and Linux, you will often see tty used to represent a communication port rather than 'COM port'.

TX

Transmitter, Data Out or TXO. The TX line transmit data. It should be hooked up to the RX line of the device with which it would like to communicate.

U

UART

Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter: device-to-device hardware asynchronous serial communication protocol. It sends data bits one by one, from the least significant to the most significant, framed by start and stop bits so that precise timing is handled by the communication channel.

Docs: analog.com