CompactFlashCompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the early memory card formats, surpassing Miniature Card and SmartMedia. Subsequent formats, such as MMC/SD, various Memory Stick formats, and xD-Picture Card offered stiff competition. Most of these cards are smaller than CompactFlash while offering comparable capacity and speed.
ChecksumA checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data integrity but are not relied upon to verify data authenticity. The procedure which generates this checksum is called a checksum function or checksum algorithm. Depending on its design goals, a good checksum algorithm usually outputs a significantly different value, even for small changes made to the input.
Programmable logic controllerA programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial computer that has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, robotic devices, or any activity that requires high reliability, ease of programming, and process fault diagnosis. Dick Morley is considered as the father of PLC as he had invented the first PLC, the Modicon 084, for General Motors in 1968.
Serial Peripheral InterfaceSerial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a de facto standard (with many variants) for synchronous serial communication, used primarily in embedded systems for short-distance wired communication between integrated circuits. SPI uses a main–subnode architecture, where one main device orchestrates communication by providing the clock signal and chip select signal(s) which control any number of subservient peripherals. Motorola's original specification uses four wires to perform full duplex communication.
Wear levelingWear leveling (also written as wear levelling) is a technique for prolonging the service life of some kinds of erasable computer storage media, such as flash memory, which is used in solid-state drives (SSDs) and USB flash drives, and phase-change memory. There are several wear leveling mechanisms that provide varying levels of longevity enhancement in such memory systems. The term preemptive wear leveling (PWL) has been used by Western Digital to describe their preservation technique used on hard disk drives (HDDs) designed for storing audio and video data.
MultiMediaCardThe MultiMediaCard, officially abbreviated as MMC, is a memory card standard used for solid-state storage. Unveiled in 1997 by SanDisk and Siemens, MMC is based on a surface-contact low pin-count serial interface using a single memory stack substrate assembly, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on high pin-count parallel interfaces using traditional surface-mount assembly such as CompactFlash. Both products were initially introduced using SanDisk NOR-based flash technology.
Personal digital assistantA personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS and Android, seeing a rapid decline in use after 2007. A PDA has an electronic visual display. Most models also have audio capabilities, allowing usage as a portable media player, and also enabling many of them to be used as telephones.
STMicroelectronicsSTMicroelectronics N.V. commonly referred to as ST or STMicro is a Dutch multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland and listed on the French stock market. ST is the largest European semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. The company resulted from the merger of two government-owned semiconductor companies in 1987: Thomson Semiconducteurs of France and SGS Microelettronica of Italy.
MegabitThe megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information. The prefix mega (symbol M) is defined in the International System of Units (SI) as a multiplier of 106 (1 million), and therefore 1 megabit = 106 bits = 1 000 000 bits = 1000 kilobits. The megabit has the unit symbol Mbit or Mb. The lowercase 'b' in Mb distinguishes it from MB (for megabyte). The megabit is closely related to the mebibit, a unit multiple derived from the binary prefix mebi (symbol Mi) of the same order of magnitude, which is equal to 220 bits = 1 048 576 bits, or approximately 5% larger than the megabit.
Floating-gate MOSFETThe floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS), also known as a floating-gate MOS transistor or floating-gate transistor, is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) where the gate is electrically isolated, creating a floating node in direct current, and a number of secondary gates or inputs are deposited above the floating gate (FG) and are electrically isolated from it. These inputs are only capacitively connected to the FG.
