Glossary
©
National Instruments Corporation
G-7
SCXI
Signal Conditioning eXtensions for Instrumentation
SE
single-ended—a term used to describe an analog input that is measured
with respect to a common ground
self-calibrating
a property of a E Series DAQ device that has an extremely stable onboard
reference and calibrates its own A/D and D/A circuits without manual
adjustments by the user
sensor
a device that converts a physical phenomenon into an electrical signal
SERCLK
serial clock signal used to synchronize digital data transfers over the
SERDATIN and SERDATOUT lines
SERDATIN
serial data input signal
SERDATOUT
serial data output signal
settling time
the amount of time required for a voltage to reach its final value within
specified accuracy limits
signal conditioning
the manipulation of signals to prepare them for digitizing
signal divider
performing frequency division on an external signal
SLOT0SEL*
slot 0 select signal
system noise
a measure of the amount of noise seen by an analog circuit or an ADC when
the analog inputs are grounded
T
thermistor
a resistive temperature sensor
thermocouple
a temperature sensor created by joining two dissimilar metals. The junction
produces a small voltage as a function of the temperature.
threshold
the voltage level a signal must reach for a trigger to occur
throughput rate
the data, measured in bytes/s, for a given continuous operation, calculated
to include software overhead
transducer
a device that converts energy from one form into another
transducer excitation
a type of signal conditioning that uses external voltages and currents to
excite the circuitry of a signal conditioning system into measuring physical
phenomena
