A piece of test equipment that creates exact waveforms, frequencies, or patterns to stimulate a circuit under test. Unlike a simple oscillator, a synthesizer uses a reference clock and complex control loops like phase-locked loops to produce highly stable and programmable outputs. Engineers use them to characterize filters, receivers, and digital logic.
Heard on the job
Set the synthesizer to output a 10 megahertz sine wave at 0 dBm.
Also heard as
- synth