# Hardware

39 Hardware terms explained simply, ordered from basic to advanced. Start at the top if the topic is new to you.

## Basic

- [AMD](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/amd/): The chip designer that competes with Intel in CPUs and with NVIDIA in GPUs.
- [Apple](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/apple/): The company that sells the iPhone and the Mac, plus the services that run on them.
- [Chip](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/semiconductor-chip/): A sliver of silicon carrying billions of tiny switches that compute and remember.
- [Clock speed](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/clock-speed/): How many times per second a processor ticks, measured in gigahertz (GHz).
- [CPU](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/cpu/): The chip that runs your programs, one instruction after another, very fast.
- [Data center](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/data-center/): A building full of servers where the internet, the cloud and AI actually run.
- [Display resolution](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/display-resolution/): How many dots, or pixels, make up a screen's image: more dots, finer detail.
- [Firmware](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/firmware/): Software built into a device to run its hardware, from routers to washing machines.
- [GPU](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/gpu/): The chip that does thousands of simple calculations at once.
- [Hard disk drive](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/hard-disk-drive/): Storage that keeps data on spinning magnetic platters: slower than an SSD, but cheap.
- [Intel](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/intel/): The American company behind most PC and server processors for decades.
- [Internet of things](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/internet-of-things/): Everyday objects with sensors and a network connection: thermostats, meters, doorbells.
- [Moore's law](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/moores-law/): The observation that chips fit about twice as many transistors every two years.
- [Motherboard](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/motherboard/): The main circuit board that every other part of a computer plugs into.
- [NVIDIA](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/nvidia/): The company that sells the shovels of the AI gold rush.
- [Operating system](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/operating-system/): The base software that runs a device and lets every app share its hardware.
- [Qualcomm](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/qualcomm/): Designs the chips, and owns key patents, that let phones talk to cell towers.
- [RAM](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/ram/): The computer's short-term memory: fast, small and wiped when you turn it off.
- [Raspberry Pi](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/raspberry-pi/): A cheap, credit-card-sized computer made for learning and tinkering.
- [Samsung](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/samsung/): Korean giant that sells phones and TVs, and makes much of the world's memory chips.
- [Server](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/server/): A computer whose job is to answer requests from other computers, all day, every day.
- [SSD](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/ssd/): Storage with no moving parts: where your files live when the power is off.
- [Tesla](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/tesla/): An electric car maker that treats the car as a computer on wheels.
- [USB](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/usb/): The standard plug for connecting and charging almost everything.
- [Virtual machine](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/virtual-machine/): A complete computer made of software, running inside a real one.
- [Xiaomi](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/xiaomi/): A Chinese maker of phones and smart home gadgets, and more recently electric cars.

## Intermediate

- [Arm](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/arm/): The British company that designs the processor blueprints inside almost every phone.
- [ASML](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/asml/): The Dutch company that builds the machines every advanced chip factory depends on.
- [BIOS and UEFI](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/bios-and-uefi/): The first program a PC runs: it checks the hardware and starts the operating system.
- [Broadcom](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/broadcom/): An American chip designer behind data center networking, Wi-Fi and custom AI chips.
- [Cores and threads](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/cpu-cores-and-threads/): Why a CPU is really several processors, and why it can juggle even more tasks.
- [NPU](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/npu/): A small AI engine inside phones and laptops that runs models fast on little battery.
- [Process node](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/process-node/): The name of a generation of chip manufacturing, like "3 nm". A label, not a size.
- [Quantum computer](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/quantum-computer/): A machine that uses quantum physics for a few specific problems. Not a faster PC.
- [System on a chip](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/system-on-a-chip/): One chip that holds a computer's main parts: CPU, GPU, memory control and more.
- [TPU](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/tpu/): Google's chip designed specifically for the math of neural networks.
- [Transistor](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/transistor/): An electrically controlled switch, the basic building block of every chip.
- [TSMC](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/tsmc/): The factory that makes the world's most advanced chips for everyone else.
- [VRAM](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/vram/): The memory built into a graphics card, where the GPU keeps what it is working on.