Computer Abbreviations & Terminology Notes

Last reviewed 16 Sept 2026 · 13 min read

Hardware and processing

Abbreviation	Full form
CPU	Central Processing Unit
ALU	Arithmetic Logic Unit
CU	Control Unit
GPU	Graphics Processing Unit
IC	Integrated Circuit
VLSI / ULSI	Very / Ultra Large Scale Integration
RISC	Reduced Instruction Set Computer
CISC	Complex Instruction Set Computer
MIPS	Million Instructions Per Second
FLOPS	Floating Point Operations Per Second
SMPS	Switched-Mode Power Supply
UPS	Uninterruptible Power Supply
PSU	Power Supply Unit
BIOS	Basic Input/Output System
UEFI	Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
POST	Power-On Self-Test
CMOS	Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor
PCI / PCIe	Peripheral Component Interconnect (Express)
USB	Universal Serial Bus
HDMI	High-Definition Multimedia Interface
VGA	Video Graphics Array
NIC	Network Interface Card
ENIAC	Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
UNIVAC	Universal Automatic Computer
EDVAC	Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer
PC	Personal Computer

Abbreviation	Full form
RAM	Random Access Memory
SRAM / DRAM	Static / Dynamic RAM
SDRAM	Synchronous Dynamic RAM
DDR	Double Data Rate (SDRAM)
ROM	Read Only Memory
PROM	Programmable ROM
EPROM	Erasable Programmable ROM
EEPROM	Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM
HDD	Hard Disk Drive
SSD	Solid State Drive
CD-ROM	Compact Disc Read-Only Memory
CD-R / CD-RW	CD Recordable / ReWritable
DVD	Digital Versatile Disc (earlier also Digital Video Disc)
BD	Blu-ray Disc
NAS	Network-Attached Storage
SAN	Storage Area Network
RAID	Redundant Array of Independent (originally Inexpensive) Disks
SATA	Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
FAT	File Allocation Table
NTFS	New Technology File System
KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB, YB	Kilo-, Mega-, Giga-, Tera-, Peta-, Exa-, Zetta-, Yotta-byte

Abbreviation	Full form
OCR	Optical Character Recognition
OMR	Optical Mark Recognition (Reader)
MICR	Magnetic Ink Character Recognition
BCR	Bar Code Reader
QR (code)	Quick Response code
RFID	Radio Frequency Identification
NFC	Near Field Communication
CRT	Cathode Ray Tube
LCD	Liquid Crystal Display
LED	Light Emitting Diode
OLED	Organic Light Emitting Diode
DPI	Dots Per Inch
PPI	Pixels Per Inch
CPS	Characters Per Second
LPM	Lines Per Minute
PPM	Pages Per Minute
VDU	Visual Display Unit
HD / FHD / UHD	High Definition / Full HD / Ultra HD
Pixel	Picture element

Abbreviation	Full form
OS	Operating System
DOS	Disk Operating System
GUI	Graphical User Interface
CLI	Command Line Interface
WIMP	Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer
API	Application Programming Interface
SDK	Software Development Kit
IDE	Integrated Development Environment
FORTRAN	Formula Translation
COBOL	Common Business-Oriented Language
BASIC	Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
HTML	HyperText Markup Language
XML	eXtensible Markup Language
CSS	Cascading Style Sheets
JSON	JavaScript Object Notation
PHP	PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (recursive; originally Personal Home Page)
SQL	Structured Query Language
DBMS / RDBMS	(Relational) Database Management System
OOP	Object-Oriented Programming
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planning
CRM	Customer Relationship Management
CAD / CAM / CAE	Computer-Aided Design / Manufacturing / Engineering
BIM	Building Information Modelling
GIS	Geographic Information System
OLTP / OLAP	Online Transaction / Analytical Processing

Abbreviation	Full form
PDF	Portable Document Format
JPEG / JPG	Joint Photographic Experts Group
PNG	Portable Network Graphics
GIF	Graphics Interchange Format
BMP	Bitmap
TIFF	Tagged Image File Format
SVG	Scalable Vector Graphics
MPEG	Moving Picture Experts Group
MP3	MPEG-1 (or MPEG-2) Audio Layer III
MP4	MPEG-4 Part 14
WAV	Waveform Audio File Format
CSV	Comma-Separated Values
ZIP	Compressed archive format (not an abbreviation)
DWG / DXF	Drawing (AutoCAD native) / Drawing Exchange Format
RTF	Rich Text Format

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