MiniaturizationMiniaturization (Br.Eng.: Miniaturisation) is the trend to manufacture ever smaller mechanical, optical and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In electronics, the exponential scaling and miniaturization of silicon MOSFETs (MOS transistors) leads to the number of transistors on an integrated circuit chip doubling every two years, an observation known as Moore's law.
Power managementPower management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power state when inactive. In computing this is known as PC power management and is built around a standard called ACPI, this supersedes APM. All recent computers have ACPI support.
BiCMOSBipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) is a semiconductor technology that integrates two semiconductor technologies, those of the bipolar junction transistor and the CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) logic gate, into a single integrated circuit. In more recent times the bipolar processes have been extended to include high mobility devices using silicon–germanium junctions.
ArduinoArduino (ɑːrˈdwiːnoʊ) is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed under a CC BY-SA license, while the software is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) or the GNU General Public License (GPL), permitting the manufacture of Arduino boards and software distribution by anyone.
ElectromigrationElectromigration is the transport of material caused by the gradual movement of the ions in a conductor due to the momentum transfer between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms. The effect is important in applications where high direct current densities are used, such as in microelectronics and related structures. As the structure size in electronics such as integrated circuits (ICs) decreases, the practical significance of this effect increases.
Embedded softwareEmbedded software is computer software, written to control machines or devices that are not typically thought of as computers, commonly known as embedded systems. It is typically specialized for the particular hardware that it runs on and has time and memory constraints. This term is sometimes used interchangeably with firmware. A precise and stable characteristic feature is that no or not all functions of embedded software are initiated/controlled via a human interface, but through machine-interfaces instead.
Thermal design powerThe thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, is the maximum amount of heat generated by a computer chip or component (often a CPU, GPU or system on a chip) that the cooling system in a computer is designed to dissipate under any workload. Some sources state that the peak power rating for a microprocessor is usually 1.5 times the TDP rating. Intel has introduced a new metric called scenario design power (SDP) for some Ivy Bridge Y-series processors.
Chip carrierIn electronics, a chip carrier is one of several kinds of surface-mount technology packages for integrated circuits (commonly called "chips"). Connections are made on all four edges of a square package; compared to the internal cavity for mounting the integrated circuit, the package overall size is large. Chip carriers may have either J-shaped metal leads for connections by solder or by a socket, or may be lead-less with metal pads for connections. If the leads extend beyond the package, the preferred description is "flat pack".
Multiprocessor system on a chipA multiprocessor system on a chip ( (), ˌɛmˌpiː'sɒk or ˌɛmˌpiːˌɛsˌoʊˈsiː ) is a system on a chip (SoC) which includes multiple microprocessors. As such, it is a multi-core system on a chip. MPSoCs are usually targeted for embedded applications. It is used by platforms that contain multiple, usually heterogeneous, processing elements with specific functionalities reflecting the need of the expected application domain, a memory hierarchy and I/O components.
Wireless routerA wireless router is a device that performs the functions of a router and also includes the functions of a wireless access point. It is used to provide access to the Internet or a private computer network. Depending on the manufacturer and model, it can function in a wired local area network, in a wireless-only LAN, or in a mixed wired and wireless network. Wireless routers typically feature one or more network interface controllers supporting Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet ports integrated into the main system on a chip (SoC) around which the router is built.
