X-Acto knife

(ex act toe) N. A small, razor-sharp knife with a disposable blade used (in electronics) to remove solder bridges between IC pins, clean up PCB tracks, and trim fingernails. The X-Acto knife is part of the universal troubleshooting kit needed by every developer. Other components include duct tape, 10-k W resistors, and Super Glue.

X-acto knifeThe indispensable X-Acto knife, with the usual hint of blood on its tip.

x86

(ex eighty-six) abbr. See 80x86.

xcvr

See transceiver.

Xilinx

N. The world s leading provider of programmable logic devices, with 50% of the market in 2002. Founded in 1984, Xilinx pioneered the FPGA and now also sells a line of CPLDs. Listed by Fortune Magazine in 2001 and 2002 as one of the best 100 companies to work for.

XIP

(as letters) abbr. See execute-in-place.

XML

(as letters) abbr. A language for the creation of customized markup languages. In that sense, a metalanguage. Short for eXtensible Markup Language. Unlike HTML, which has a fixed format, its cousin XML both are defined in Standardized General Markup Language (SGML) is flexible and extensible. It can be used to describe the content of any document or database.

XOFF

(ex off) n. A special character transmitted in-band to request a resumption of a previously paused flow of incoming data. ASCII 0x13. See also XON, software flow control.

XON

(ex on) n. A special character transmitted in-band to request a pause in the flow of incoming data. ASCII 0x11.

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