An electrical load attached to the physical end of a high-speed signal path. Its impedance is carefully matched to the characteristic impedance of the cable or PCB trace. Without a terminator, fast edge-rates will bounce off the open end of the line and travel back to the source, causing destructive interference and data corruption.
Heard on the job
The CAN bus is throwing error frames because someone forgot to put a 120-ohm terminator on the last node.
Also heard as
- termination resistor