Glossary

Also see this list on Wikipedia

A

• ADC
  • Analog-to-Digital Converter
• AI
  • Artificial Intelligence
• AIoT
  • AI + Internet of Things (IoT)
• ARM
  • Advanced RISC Machine

B

• BLE
  • Bluetooth Low Power

C

• CS
  • Chip Select connection

D

• DAC
  • Digital-to-Analog Converter
• DAP
  • Debug Access Point
• DAPLink
  • Arm Mbed DAPLink is an open-source software project that enables programming and debugging application software on running on Arm Cortex CPUs. Commonly referred to as interface firmware, DAPLink runs on a secondary MCU that is attached to the SWD or JTAG port of the application MCU. This configuration is found on nearly all development boards. It creates a bridge between your development computer and the CPU debug access port. DAPLink enables developers with drag-and-drop programming, a serial port and CMSIS-DAP based debugging.
• DIP
  • Dual In-line Package
    • an electronic component package
• duty cycle ratio
  • Because power is only applied [to digital devices] when the duty cycle is on, the average power delivered to the device is the duty cycle ratio multiplied by the "on" time.

E

• ESD
  • Electro-Static Discharge

F

• FIFO
  • First In/First Out

G

• GPIO
  • General Purpose Input-Output

I

• I²C
  • Inter-Integrated Circuit, a Phillips-trademarked name
    • also see TWI
    • a hardware communications protocol
• IDE
  • Integrated Development Environment
• IMU
  • Inertial Measurement Unit
• IoT
  • Internet of Things
• IRQ
  • Interrupt Request

M

• MCU
  • MicroController Unit
• microcontroller
  • a compact integrated circuit designed to govern a specific operation in an embedded system. A typical microcontroller includes a processor, memory and input/output (I/O) peripherals on a single chip.
• MISO
  • Master In/Slave Out
  • a data transmission connection protocol
• ML
  • Machine Learning
    • also see TinyML
• MOSI
  • Master Out/Slave In
    • a data transmission connection protocol
• Mosquitto
  • a cross-platform, open-source MQTT broker (central server)
• MQTT
  • Message Queue Telemetry Transport
    • a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging protocol, useful for IoT projects
• microfs
  • tool that uses the USB serial connection for working with the filesystem in MicroPython

N

• NodeMCU
  • a low-cost open source #I IoT platform, for ESP8266 & ESP32
• NPU
  • Network Processing Unit

O

• open drain
  • means the communications signal is pulled high by default, and devices change the signal by pulling low

P

• PDM
  • Pulse Density Modulation
    • a method of representing an analog signal with binary (on/off) data
• PIR
  • Passive InfraRed sensor
• PWM
  • Pulse Width Modulation
    • another method of representing an analog signal, to control the average power delivered, e.g. using a potentiometer

Q

• QoS
  • Quality of Service

R

• REPL
  • Read, Evaluate, Print,Loop
    • This is the three-chevron prompt (>>>) in Python and MicroPython where you type commands interactively.
• RTC
  • Real Time Clock
• RX
  • Receive, or Receiving Port

S

• SBC
  • Single Board Computer, such as Raspberry Pi
• SCL
  • Clock signal used by I²C protocol
• SCK
  • Serial Clock
• SCLK
  • Serial CLocK
• SDA
  • Data signal used by I²C protocol
• SMD
  • Surface Mount Device
    • an electronic component package
• SPI
  • Serial Peripheral Interface

T

• TinyML
  • Tiny Machine Learning
    • Embedded ML designed for use on small devices, such as MCUs
• TWI
  • Two-Wire Interface
    • an open-source description of the I²C protocol
• TX
  • Transmit, or Transmitting Port

U

• UART
  • Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter
• USB
  • Universal Serial Bus

W

• WebREPL
  • Browser-based REPL used to communicate with ESP8266/ESP32 boards via local Wifi