Section
 

Glossary: V

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Strictly speaking, a semiconductor is a material with an electrical conductivity between that of an insulator and that of a conductor. Semiconductors can be single elements such as silicon or germanium or compounds such as gallium arsenide or indium phosphide. In day to day usage, however, the term "semiconductor" more frequently refers to the components manufactured from semiconductor materials.

  • V
    Voltage
  • VA
    Volt Ampere
  • VAC
    Volts Alternating Current
  • VAFE
    Voice Analog Front-End
  • VAM
    Value Added Managers
  • Vapor
    The gaseous form of a material that is normally found in the solid or liquid state at room temperature. Vaporization occurs when particles in the solid or liquid gain enough energy to escape the material, especially with an increase of temperature. The term is frequently employed to refer to water in the gas phase: "water vapor".
  • Vapor Plating
    A vacuum process, usually at less than 10 -6 Torr (mmg of Hg), where metal(s) are vaporized through thermal agitation, then recrystallized on cooler surfaces, generally the material to be coated. Also referred to as evaporation.
  • Vapor Priming
    The process for coating the wafer surface with HMDS
  • VAR
    VARiable
  • Variability
    The dispersion or scatter exhibited by evaluations of successive events resulting from a common process.
  • Variation
    Change in the value of a measured characteristic. Sources of variation can be grouped into two major classes: common causes and special causes.
  • VAT
    Value Added Tax
  • VAX
    Virtual Address eXtension
    Computer made by Digital Equipment Corporation. Widely used in design and development departments.
  • VBR
    Variable Bit Rate
  • VCC
    Supply voltage - positive
  • VCD
    Variable Capacitance Diode
  • VCO
    Voltage Controlled Oscillator
  • VCR
    Video Cassette Recorder
    Any machine for recording and playing back video signals on tape cassettes.
  • VDC
    Volts Direct Current
  • VDD
    Supply voltage - negative
  • VDD
    Voltage Drain
    Commonly used to designate device supply voltage.
  • VDS
    Visual Die Sort
  • VDSL
    Very-high-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Loop
  • VDU
    Visual Display Unit
    Obsolete name for computer terminal. Originally used to distinguish between the then standard printing terminals and the new CRT display types.
  • VE
    Visual Emissions
  • Verilog
    Hardware description language
  • VESA
    Video Electronics Standard Association
    Organization that standardizes computer video display board architectures and convention.
  • VF
    Vacuum Fluorescent
  • VFC
    Voltage to Frequency Converter
  • VFO
    Variable Frequency Oscillator
  • VGA
    Video Graphics Array
    Video display standard commonly used in personal computers. It has 640x480 pixels and 256 colors.
  • VHDL
    VHSIC Hardware Description Language
  • VHS
    Video Home System
    Effectively the standard for analog home videocassettes. It has completely replaced rivals Betamax and Video 2000.
  • VHSIC
    Very High-Speed Integrated Circuit
  • VIA
    A path filled with conducting material between circuit layers.
  • Vinyl chloride (CH2CHCl)
    A gaseous organic compound composed of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine. Vinyl chloride is used to make the plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Vinyl chloride is one of the few chemicals which is known with certainty to be a cause of cancer in humans. In the 1960's-70's, medical and epidemiological studies showed that occupational exposure to vinyl chloride caused an extremely rare liver cancer, angiosarcoma. Discovery of this led to extremely tough standards on occupational exposure to vinyl chloride, so tough that the PVC industry feared that for its continued existence. However, the industry rose to the challenge and has continued to be able to manufacture PVC at economically acceptable prices while meeting the stringent occupational TLV's for vinyl chloride.
  • VIP
    Video Interface Port
  • VIPower®
    VIPower is a family of proprietary ST technologies in which discrete power structure are inte-grated with analog and digital control and diagnostic circuitry, resulting in a device that com-bines the robustness of discrete technology with integrated control and diagnostic circuitry.
  • Virus
    An undesired computer program designed to copy itself from one disk to another furtively. Some simply announce their presence, others cause loss or damage to information.
  • Vision
    A definition or description of how we want to be viewed by our stakeholders at some fixed time in the future. It defines what kind of company (or division, or department) we want to become as well as how well we should perform. It can have both descriptive and numeric objective.
  • VITAL
    Vhdl Initiative Towards Asic Libraries
  • VLIW
    Very Long Instruction Word
  • VLSI
    Very Large Scale Integration
    In R&D missions, the VLSI technologies concern the Agrate, Carrollton, Crolles and Catania sites. An IC that contains 100,000 or more transistors, but less than 10 million.
  • VLT
    Video Look up Table
  • VMB
    Visual Management for Breakthrough
  • VMI
    Vendor Managed Inventory
  • VMOS
    V-groove Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
  • VO
    Volatile Organic
  • VOC
    Volatile Organic Compounds
    A category of organic compounds with relatively high vapor pressures, they are a major air contaminant. Most VOCs are carbon-hydrogen compounds (hydrocarbons), but they also may be aldehydes, ketones, chlorinated hydrocarbons, and others. Thousands of individual compounds exist, including the unburned hydrocarbon compounds emitted from automobiles or industrial processes and the organic solvents lost to evaporation from household, commercial, or industrial cleaning and painting operations, and other activities. Most VOCs participate in the atmospheric reactions that lead to photochemical air pollution ("photochemical smog"), and excessive exposure to certain individual compounds is associated with skin irritation, central nervous system depression, and/or an increased risk of cancer.
  • VOL
    VOLume
  • Volatile
    If the power is turned off, you lose your data.
  • Voltage
    Electron potential in an electrical wire or circuit. Usually expressed in volts (V).
  • VOM
    Volt OhmMeter
  • VOX
    Voice Operated transmit ("trans"=X as in "Xmitter")
  • VP
    1) Vice President Executive level corporate officer.
    2) Vapor Pressure

  • VPN
    Virtual Private Network
  • VR
    Voltage Regulator
  • VRAM
    Video Random Access Memory
    RAM memory used to store images in real-time display applications.
  • VS
    1)Voltage Supervisor
    2)Vertical Sync
  • VSD
    Virtually Safe Dose
  • VSIA
    Virtual System Interface Alliance
  • VSS
    Supply Voltage - negative
  • VSS
    Voltage Source
    Commonly used to designate device ground - negative.
  • VT
    Virtual Terminal
  • VTL
    Variable Threshold Logic
  • VTM
    Voltage Tunable Magnetron
  • VTVM
    Vacuum Tube Volt Meter
  • VVI
    Virtual Vertical Integration
  • VWAT
    Versawatt
    ST proprietary name for TO-220 package.