Glossary
NI5102 User Manual G-12 ni.com
MFLOPS million floating-point operations per second—the unit for expressingthe
computationalpower of a processor
MIPS million instructions per second—the unit for expressing the speed of
processormachine code instructions
MISO Master-In-Slave-Outsignal
MITE MXIInterfaces to Everything—a custom ASIC designed by National
Instrumentsthat implements the PCI bus interface. The MITE supports bus
mastering for high speed data transfers overthe PCI bus
MOSI Master-Out-Slave-Insignal
MS million samples
MSB mostsignificantbit
MTBF meantime between failure
mux multiplexer—aswitching device with multiple inpu ts that sequentially
connectseach of its inputs to its output, ty pically at high speeds, in order to
measure severalsignals with a single analog input channel
N
NBS National Bureau of Standards
NI-SCOPE NI driversoftware for DAQ hardware
noise an undesirable electrical signal—Noise c omes from externalsources such
asthe AC power line, motors, generators, transformers, fluorescent lights,
solderingirons, CRT displays, computers, electrical storms, welders, radio
transmitters, and internal sources such as semiconductors, resistors, and
capacitors.N oise corrupts signals you are trying to send or receive
nonreferenced signal
sources
signalsources with voltage signals that are not connected to an absolute
reference or system ground. Also called floating signal sources. Some
common exampleof nonreferenced signal sources are b atteries,
transformers,or t hermocouples