Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.
Glossary
operand — Data on which an operation is performed. Usually a statement consists of an
operator and an operand. For example, the operator may be an add instruction, and the
operand may be the quantity to be added.
oscillator — A circuit that produces a constant frequency square wave that is used by the
computer as a timing and sequencing reference.
OTPROM — One-time programmable read-only memory. A nonvolatile type of memory that
cannot be reprogrammed.
overflow — A quantity that is too large to be contained in one byte or one word.
page zero — The first 256 bytes of memory (addresses $0000–$00FF).
parity — An error-checking scheme that counts the number of logic 1s in each byte transmitted.
In a system that uses odd parity, every byte is expected to have an odd number of logic
1s. In an even parity system, every byte should have an even number of logic 1s. In the
transmitter, a parity generator appends an extra bit to each byte to make the number of
logic 1s odd for odd parity or even for even parity. A parity checker in the receiver counts
the number of logic 1s in each byte. The parity checker generates an error signal if it finds
a byte with an incorrect number of logic 1s.
PC — See “program counter (PC).”
peripheral — A circuit not under direct CPU control.
phase-locked loop (PLL) — A clock generator circuit in which a voltage controlled oscillator
produces an oscillation which is synchronized to a reference signal.
PLL — See "phase-locked loop (PLL)."
pointer — Pointer register. An index register is sometimes called a pointer register because its
contents are used in the calculation of the address of an operand, and therefore points to
the operand.
polarity — The two opposite logic levels, logic 1 and logic 0, which correspond to two different
voltage levels, VDD and VSS.
polling — Periodically reading a status bit to monitor the condition of a peripheral device.
port — A set of wires for communicating with off-chip devices.
prescaler — A circuit that generates an output signal related to the input signal by a fractional
scale factor such as 1/2, 1/8, 1/10 etc.
program — A set of computer instructions that cause a computer to perform a desired operation
or operations.
68HC(9)12D60 — Rev 4.0
MOTOROLA
Advance Information
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Glossary
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