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# 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Preface Purpose The purpose of The Electrical Engineering Handbook, 3rd Edition is to provide a ready reference for the practicing engineer in industry, government, and academia, as well as aid students of engineering. The third edition has a new look and comprises six volumes including: Circuits, Signals, and Speech and Image Processing Electronics, Power Electronics, Optoelectronics, Microwaves, Electromagnetics, and Radar Sensors, Nanoscience, Biomedical Engineering, and Instruments Broadcasting and Optical Communication Technology Computers, Software Engineering, and Digital Devices Systems, Controls, Embedded Systems, Energy, and Machines Each volume is edited by Richard C. Dorf, and is a comprehensive format that encompasses the many aspects of electrical engineering with articles from internationally recognized contributors. The goal is to provide the most up-to-date information in the classical fields of circuits, signal processing, electronics, electromagnetic fields, energy devices, systems, and electrical effects and devices, while covering the emerging fields of communications, nanotechnology, biometrics, digital devices, computer engineering, systems, and biomedical engineering. In addition, a complete compendium of information regarding physical, chemical, and materials data, as well as widely inclusive information on mathematics is included in each volume. Many articles from this volume and the other five volumes have been completely revised or updated to fit the needs of today and many new chapters have been added. The purpose of this volume, Computers, Software Engineering, and Digital Devices, is to provide a ready reference to subjects in the fields of digital and logical devices, displays, testing, software, and computers. Here we provide the basic information for understanding these fields. We also provide information about the emerging fields of programmable logic, hardware description languages, and parallel computing. Organization The information is organized into three sections. The first two sections encompass 20 chapters and the last section summarizes the applicable mathematics, symbols, and physical constants. Most articles include three important and useful categories: defining terms, references, and further information. Defining terms are key definitions and the first occurrence of each term defined is indicated in boldface in the text. The definitions of these terms are summarized as a list at the end of each chapter or article. The references provide a list of useful books and articles for follow-up reading. Finally, further information provides some general and useful sources of additional information on the topic. Locating Your Topic Numerous avenues of access to information are provided. A complete table of contents is presented at the front of the book. In addition, an individual table of contents precedes each section. Finally, each chapter begins with its own table of contents. The reader should look over these tables of contents to become familiar with the structure, organization, and content of the book. For example, see Section II: Computer Engineering, # 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC then Chapter 17: Parallel Processors, and then Chapter 17.2: Parallel Computing. This tree-and-branch table of contents enables the reader to move up the tree to locate information on the topic of interest. Two indexes have been compiled to provide multiple means of accessing information: subject index and index of contributing authors. The subject index can also be used to locate key definitions. The page on which the definition appears for each key (defining) term is clearly identified in the subject index. The Electrical Engineering Handbook, 3rd Edition is designed to provide answers to most inquiries and direct the inquirer to further sourc