NASA Space Technology

Instrument and Sensing Technology

Terms and Definitions

This area tends to be a real alphabet soup of terms and acronyms. I've started to pull together some of these. I hope you find this list useful.

Links to Other Glossaries, Acronym Lists, etc.

Lexicon of Semiconductor Terms from Harris Corporation.
EE Times Glossary from TechWeb.
Sun Glossary from Sun Microsystems, Inc..

Glossary / Acronym List

ADC

Analog to Digital Converter

APD

Avalanche Photodiode

APS

Active Pixel Sensor

Links to APS Information:

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASIC

Application Specific Integrated Circuit

BASS

Bulk Avalanche Semiconductor Switch: Used to generate high-peak-power, fast risetime pulses of microwave energy for applications such as ultra-wide band radar and high-power electronic warfare systems.

BIB

Blocked Impurity Band. As I understand it, this is a term for an IBC detector that is a Rockwell International trade mark.

BiHEMT

Bipolar HEMT

BPSK

Binary Phase-Shift Keying (modulators)

CAD

Computer Aided Design

CBE

Chemical Beam Epitaxy

CCD

Charge-Coupled Devices

Some links to CCD sources of information:

CCSDS

Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems. The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) is an international organization of space agencies interested in mutually developing standard data handling techniques to support space research, including space science and applications, conducted exclusively for peaceful purposes. For more information see the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems Home Page.

CMOS

CMOS stands for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. It is the microelectronics technology that is used in almost all microprocessors, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICS), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and memory products. There is enormous activity around the world in improving CMOS.

CSBH

Crescent-Substrate-Buried Heterostructure

DEXL

Deep Etch X-ray Lithography. See LIGA.

DFB

Distributed Feedback

DIAL

DIfferential Absorption Lidar

ESCA

Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis

Extrinsic

See chart on Energy Bandgap Structure of Semiconductors

FET

Field Effect Transistor

GaAs

Gallium Arsenide

GSMBE

Gas Source MBE

HB

Horizontal Bridgman (crystal growth)

HBT

Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor

HEMT

High Electron Mobility Transistor (usually, although I once saw this used for Hot Electron Metal-base Transistor)

Heterodyne

In heterodyne systems a known local oscillator (LO) is combined (in a mixer) with the signal you want to measure to produce a beat frequency (called the IF) which is at a lower frequency than the original signal (and thus easier to work with). Broadcast television uses this method to convert the broadcast signals to a standard frequency for the rest of the electronics to deal with.

HgCdTe

Mercury Cadmium Telluride (MCT)

HIP

Heterojunction Internal Photoemission (usually referring to SiGe/Si HIP infrared detector arrays)

HIT

Heterojunction Interface Trap (used in reference to infrared detectors, these tend to produce steep non-linear response and be very sensitive to operating temperature, making them difficult to calibrate)

IBC

Impurity Band Conduction (used for very sensitive, cryogenically cooled infrared detectors)

IC

Integrated Circuit

IF

Intermediate Frequency: Term frequently used in heterodyne systems.

Intrinsic

See chart on Energy Bandgap Structure of Semiconductors

IR

Infrared (region of the electromagnetic spectrum)

JFET

Junction Field Effect Transistor (FET)

KTP

KTiOPO4: Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (nonlinear optical material)

LADAR

LAser Detection And Ranging. LIDAR using a Laser.

Laser

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Lasers from Science Hypermedia.

LIDAR or Lidar

LIght Detection And Ranging

Some links to LIDAR sources of information:

What is LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR)? from the Electro-Optics Branch at MSFC.

LEC

Liquid Encapsulated Czochralski (crystal growth)

LED

Light Emitting Diode

LIGA

Lithographie, Galvanaplastie, Abformung (i.e., Lithography, Plating, Molding), a German acronym signifying a combination of deep-etch x-ray lithography, electroplating, and injection molding. The LIGA technique originated at the Karlsruche (or is it Karlsruhe?) Nuclear Research Center in Germany.

Some LIGA Resources:

Based on the LIGA technique, the OSAT High Energy Collimator Grid Technology effort dramatically reduces size and cost of planned High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) Mission. The NASA deep-etch x-ray lithography work uses the following x-ray light sources:
- The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, a division of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), a national laboratory operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
- The Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, a national laboratory managed by the University of California, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
LIGA from MCNC.

LO

Local Oscillator: Term frequently used in heterodyne systems.

LPE

Liquid Phase Epitaxy

LSI

Large Scale Integration

MAMA

Multi-Anode Microchannel Array. Click here for a GIF drawing of a MAMA ultraviolet detector scanned in from a presentation to NASA by the Center for Space Science and Astrophysics at Stanford University in June of 1992.

MBE

Molecular Beam Epitaxy

MCM

Multi-Chip Module

MCP

Multichannel Plate

MCT

Mercury Cadmium Telluride (HgCdTe)

MDC

Multistage Depressed Collector (electron beam technology): Invented in 1971 by Dr. Henry Kosmahl of the NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC). Led to two Emmys. The first Emmy was to NASA and the Canadian Department of Communication for pioneering work on direct broadcast of television from space by means of the Communications Technology Satellite (CTS). The second Emmy was to the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for application of NASA technology to develop a highly effective klystron for UHF television transmission.

MEMS

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems.

There are a lot of MEMS resources out there, most of which can be found through the MEMS Subway.

MESFET

Metal-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (FET)

MIC

Microwave Integrated Circuit

MIDAS

MCM Interconnect Designer's Access Service: The MIDAS Foundry Access Service from the from Information Sciences Institute (ISI).

MIPS

MIS

Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor

MISFET

Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor (MIS) Field Effect Transistor (FET)

MMIC

Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit

MOCVD

Metallo-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

ModFET or MODFET

Modulation-doped Field Effect Transistor (FET)

MOMBE

Metallo-Organic Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)

MOS

Metal-Oxide-Silicon or Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor

MOSFET

Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) Field Effect Transistor (FET)

MOSIS

The MOSIS VLSI Fabrication Service -- Custom VLSI Fabrication from the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute.

MQW

Multiple Quantum Well

MWIR

Midwave Infrared (IR)

OMVPE

Organometallic Vapor Phase Epitaxy (VPE)

PBT

Permeable Base Transistor

PECVD

Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD)

PIN

Positive-Intrinsic-Negative (diode)

QPSK

Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying (in the context of a 4 GHz microwave integrated circuit, QPSK modulator for 120 Mbits/sec data rates). " Achieved by driving two balanced binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulators in parallel and using a 90 degree, 3-dB hybrid to combine their outputs."

QWIP

Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector. A quantum well infrared photodetector is an infrared detector which consists of multiple alternating thin GaAs and AlGaAs layers. It utilizes infrared absorption inside quantum wells.

Some QWIP Resources:

Very Long-Wavelength Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors (QWIPs)
Sneak Peak at a QWIPS Article for the Autumn '94 Issue of CSMT's Space Microelectronics Magazine!
- Published at JPL by the Center for Space Microelectronics Technology.

RADAR

RAdio Detection And Ranging.

RAM

Random Access Memory

RF

Radio Frequency

RHEED

Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction

RISC

Reduced Instruction Set Computer

RTA

Rapid Thermal Annealing

SAM

Separate Absorption and Multiplication (photodiode)

SDHT

Selectively Doped Heterostructure Transistor

SIMS

Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy

SIS

Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor: A type of mixer used in heterodyne systems.

SOI

Silicon-On-Insulator

SPARC

Scalable Processor ARChitecture (Trade Mark by Sun Microsystems, Inc.): RISC architecture with fixed length 32 bit instructions, etc.

SS/TDMA

Satellite-Switched Time-Division Multiple-Access (used in context of techniques for advanced communication satellites).

SWIR

Short Wave Infrared (IR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

TELOS

Transfer of Epitaxial Layers to Optimal Substrate

TTL

Transistor Transistor Logic

UHF

Ultra-High Frequency (Television Broadcast Band)

UHV

Ultrahigh Vacuum

ULSI

Ultra-Large Scale Integration

VB

Vertical Bridgman (crystal growth)

VBL

Vertical Bloch Line

VHDL

Very High-level Definition Language (if I remember right, but I plan to look it up, so take this with a grain of salt).

VHF

Very-High Frequency (Television Broadcast Band)

VLSI

Very Large Scale Integration

VPE

Vapor Phase Epitaxy

WDM

Wavelength Division Multiplexing

YAG

Yttrium Aluminum Garnet

YIG

Yttrium Iron Garnet

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Created December 29, 1994, 1994. Last update: October 30, 1996. Please see my Disclaimer and Web Policy page. Maintained by Gordon Johnston.

Gordon.Johnston@hq.nasa.gov

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