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ABC of electronics terms

(To find chips for distinct functions, see the functional pages.)

F

FAQ

www.faqs.org/	Internet FAQ Archives, good!
sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/faqs/	Search engine for FAQ's
www.cs.ruu.nl/cgi-bin/faqwais/	University of Utrecht

Fastener

Fax

users.etech.fh-hamburg.de/users/wendt_a/texte/faxclas2.htm

Discription of fax class 2 operation

Fiber Optic

Field Bus

File type

Filter

Finger print

See also:

local

Firewire

Flash EPROM

www.esacademy.com/faq/docs/flash/	Article: Using Flash Memory in Embedded Applications
www.badflash.com/	Flash EPROM* recovery and replacement business

See also EEPROM, EPROM*, PROM*, ROM.

Floppy Disk Drive

Formulae

Forth

Back to Forth though:

www.forth.org/faq.html	FAQ in HTML
www.forth.org/	Forth Interest Group (FIG)
www.forth.com/	Forth, Inc.
www.clienux.com/	A Forth based distribution of Linux
www.angelusresearch.com/	"Whiskers" is a robot that is run by Forth

Also see the MISC mailing list in the mailing lists section. It's a processor architecture aimed at processing Forth efficiently.

FPAA

Motorola has left this market in 199806 according to a senior engineering contact at Motorola who had helped develop the part. He wrote me: 'It was a great device and fun while it lasted (sigh), but alas, it is no more.'

See also CPLD and FPGA (next entry on this page) and TRAC.

FPGA

This is a large chip with an array of cells, with each a couple of memory elements, and logic. You determine how all the elements are connected. So you can program how your hardware behaves. The configuration of these chips is often loaded at power-up from a serial EEPROM I think.

This is a 'cheap' way to design your own chips. All the components are already on the chip, but 'in the field' you program them to make the right connections between the components. Cheap is not really true for large amounts since the chip will use a lot of energy for the components that you're not really using. These components are also expensive because they carry a lot of unused silicon around. They may also be slow. Startup time may be hindered by the fact that their functionality needs to be loaded from a serial ROM. The software needed to achieve the functionality may also be expensive and getting your personal used to the software may also take time. However once the design is ready and tested there may be an easy path to having the design being mass produced in a real ASIC. Xilinx became big making these things.

FPGA manufacturers:

• AMD (Vantis)
• Actel
• Altera
• Atmel
• Cypress
• Lattice
• Lucent
• Motorola
• Philips
• Quicklogic
• Vantis (AMD)
• Xilinx

www.optimagic.com/lowcost.html#VeryLow	free Atmel AT40k FPGA development software
www.us-epanorama.net/fpga.html	At ePanorama

FPGA's are so large and complex by now that you can design your own processors in them:

www.ultratechnology.com/store.htm	Video tapes of a class on FPGA logic design
www.spacetimepro.com/dyop.htm	Design Your Own Processor (in FPGA)!
www.thesis.cjb.net/	Another project

See also CPLD, FPAA (previous entry) and VHDL.

Chips:

See also:

See also:

Zoran Salcic and Asim Smailagic

Kluwer Academic Publishers

Norwell, MA

tel: +1-617-871-6600

Overview of PLD* and FPGA technology, applications and design techniques.

See EDN Europe, 19971009/pg 20

Fuse

Fuzzy Logic

• Mark Kantrowitz (mkant+@cs.cmu.edu)
• www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/Groups/AI/html/faqs/ai/fuzzy/part1/faq.html - FAQ