Globalisation, coupled with the accessibility of the Internet in the modern world, can result in things meaning very different things to different people. Common terms can be misused too; we have seen some very interesting interpretations of meanings in our various lifetimes! We have decided to put a lexicon on the website so we can keep the pages tight to the usually defined and abbreviated form. Apologies if that makes them a little awkward to read. Rather than a straight glossary, herein is a lexicon to aid better the background as often a little more context is needed in this highly specialist field and easily stated, yet difficult to actually do set of technologies and problems.

This is not going to be exhaustive, but will list many of the acronyms and areas where an explanation is best served. We will assume most of the common Telecommunications and Military Signals terms are standard, for the avoidance of doubt we will always use the UK meaning. If we choose to alter that to a NATO or other jurisdiction then it will be listed below. Feel free to Contact Us to ask us to update this page with something we haven't yet put on here.

The common Electronic Warfare acronyms are excluded.

The following links are the various pages in alphabetic order for our site's use of various abbreviations and our intended meaning, {use the links to relevant pages}:

SaBRE - Supporting Britain's Reservists and Employers. UK Ministry of Defence initiative to support the relationship between the Employers and the Reservists [sic: Those who are Reserve Members of the UK Armed Forces].

SAE - Society of Automotive Engineers. An US organisation that is both a professional and a standards organisations for professionals working in the Aerospace and Commercial Vehicles doctrines.

SDSR - Strategic Defence and Security Review. This is a high-level policy document of the UK Government.

SEMI - This is a global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chain for the micro- and nano-electronics industries. Essentially anything and everything semiconductor related.

SLA - Single Living Accommodation. UK Ministry of Defence standards and style of accommodation of personnel.

SMD - Surface-Mounted Device. An electronic component that has flattened the leads and structure such that the geometries are considerably smaller and hence packing densities on the PCB can now be considerable [and also both sides]. 

SME - Small Medium Enterprise. In The UK that has a very strict definition of any organisation or company that has fewer than 250 employees. In the UK there are around 5.2 million SMEs and they employ around 90% of the total working population in the UK. The Companies Act 2006 covers more precisely the definitions in section 382 and 465. The UK Treasury [sic: Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs] place accounting obligations around these definitions in terms of Turnover and gross assets. Hence the UK Government assert the definition as meeting two out of the following three criteria to be classed as 'An SME': {a} Fewer than 250 employees, {b} a turnover less than £25m and/or {c} gross assets less than £12.5m. Why does this matter... simply put 99.3% of the UK Private Sector at the start of 2015 were SMEs and they yielded for the economy £1.6T which is only 47% of the private sector turnover! UK Government therefore is driving hard to ensure 25% of its expenditure is direct and not via large organisations or global companies which make up the other 0.7% of the UK Private Sector, employ less than 10% of the total workforce and yield circa 53% of its turnover.

SMT - Surface Mounted Technology. See SMD.

SOC - System On a Chip. Typically an Integrated Circuit can be connected on a PCB and such connections easily made and designed combining discrete components and a family of other Integrated Circuits. A SoC is essentially the same without the PCB - the key components and silicon {or other} slices are interconnected on the chip carrier - hence the name.

STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

STO - Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US. The organisation has the specialist programmes of AEO {Adaptive Execution Office}, DSO {Defence Sciences Office}, I2O {Information Innovation Office}, MTO {Microsystems Technology Office}, STO {Strategic Technology Office}, TTO {Tactical Technology Office} and BTO {Biological Technologies Office}.

STP - Screened twisted pairs. See UTP and ISO/IEC 11801

T&Cs -Terms and Conditions.

TIG - Tungsten Inert Gas. This is an Arc Welding Plasma process for welding Stainless Steel, and the complex Copper, Magnesium and Aluminium Alloys. The inert gas is usually Argon or Helium.

TRL -Technology Readiness Level.  Originally developed as a conceptual ranking by NASA in the late 1970s coming out of the Jet Propulsion Lab. Now widely adopted as a baseline for assessment of technology maturity.

    TRL 1:  Basic principles have been observed.

    TRL 2:  Technology concept formulated.

    TRL 3:  Experimental proof of concept.

    TRL 4:  Technology validated in the lab.

    TRL 5:  Technology validated real environment.

    TRL 6:  Technology demonstrated real environment.

    TRL 7:  System prototype demonstrated in operational environment.

    TRL 8:  System complete and qualified.

    TRL 9:  System proven in operational environment.

TTO - Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US. The organisation has the specialist programmes of AEO {Adaptive Execution Office}, DSO {Defence Sciences Office}, I2O {Information Innovation Office}, MTO {Microsystems Technology Office}, STO {Strategic Technology Office}, TTO {Tactical Technology Office} and BTO {Biological Technologies Office}.