TRN Glossary S

Semiconductor: A crystalline substance such as silicon that is more resistant to electrical charges than conductors (like most metals) but less resistant than insulators (like glass and rubber). Semiconductors are the raw material that is processed, via photolithography, to make integrated circuits.

SGML: See Standard Generalized Markup Language.

Signal Processing: Analyzing and manipulating electronic signals via specialized software. Signal processing is most often used to clean up or manipulate audio and video signals.

Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML): The international standard for defining specific types of electronic documents. HTML is the most familiar document type derived from SGML.

State: The condition of a system at a particular point or span in time. The concept of states is widely used in computer science and engineering because it allows people to view complicated systems as sets of smaller, simpler units.

Symbolic Computation: Using symbolic notation, which consists of symbols that represent mathematical functions, to perform higher level mathematics. The related numerical computation is more widely used though less accurate.