Siemens SIPART PS2 Operating Instructions Manual page 320

Glossary
Factory Mutual
Industrial property insurer and certification agency in the USA. FM Global is one of the largest
industrial insurers in the world who are specialized in the field of technically-supported property
insurance. It offers services like product research, testing and certification.
Failure that causes a dangerous situation
Failure with the potential to switch a safety-instrumented system to a hazardous or non-
functioning safety status.
Fieldbus
A fieldbus is an industrial communication system used to connect a number of field devices
with a control device. Field devices include temperature transmitters, pressure transmitters,
and positioners.
Firmware
Firmware (FW) is software that is embedded on a chip in electronic devices – in contrast to
software which is saved on hard disks, CD-ROMs or other media. These days, firmware is
mostly stored in a flash memory or an EEPROM. Firmware is software in the hardware, and
is thus an intermediate between software and hardware. Firmware is normally model-specific.
This means that it does not function on other device models and is delivered by the
manufacturing company. The corresponding devices cannot function without the firmware. The
firmware mostly contains elementary functions to control the device, as well as input and output
routines.
Frequency shift keying
Frequency shift keying (FSK)
Frequency shift keying is a simple modulation format in which digital values 0 and 1 are
represented by two different frequencies.
GSD file
The file that describes the properties of a PROFIBUS DP slave or a PROFINET IO device.
The GSD file is a database file for PROFIBUS devices. The device manufacturer provides the
corresponding GSD file containing the description of device properties. The information in the
file can be read using Engineering Tools.
Increment
From the Latin word incrementare, increase. Increment is the defined amount of change when
increasing a variable gradually. IT term that refers to a step-by-step increase in a numeric
value.→Decrement.
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SIPART PS2 with PROFIBUS PA
Operating Instructions, 02/2016, A5E00127926-AB