Preface

Every industry, as it grows and matures, develops its own language for explaining concepts that are unique to its endeavors. In high-technology industries, language has special meaning for its users and becomes a convenient tool for referring to programs, processes, products or technologies that can be extremely complex.

In the case of semiconductors, the evolution of the industry has been so dynamic since the invention of the transistor in 1947 at Bell Laboratories, that even veterans have been hard pressed to keep up with the terminology. As words, abbreviations, acronyms and phrases have been invented, combined, and combined again, similar sounds and similar spellings have come to stand for intricate concepts with distinct and important differences.

Intersil has assembled this Lexicon of Semiconductor Terms, Abbreviations and Acronyms to improve understanding of the exciting world of semiconductors. We have tried to provide insight into what the terms mean, and we've taken special pains to clarify the drivers of our own business, which is to provide high performance, high reliability, standard and custom products for signal processing and power control applications.

We hope you find this lexicon useful, and we welcome suggestions for making it, and our products, even more useful in the future.