Termination as a technical term has different meanings.

• In electronics, it refers to the need to put a terminator (either a resistor or a resistor-capacitor network) on the unconnected end of a transmission line, to prevent signal reflections due to the impedance mismatch between the line and the empty space beyond its end. In computer hardware in particular, electrical terminators are needed in many bus-style communication channels, such as thin-wire Ethernet and SCSI. Some devices that attach to such channels are self-terminating: they are capable of sensing whether a terminator is needed, and configuring themselves accordingly.

• In computability theory and computer programming, a crucial part of the definition of an algorithm is that it must terminate—that is, produce its answer after running for a finite number of steps. Whether this number is or isn't too large for practical execution of the algorithm on a real computer is the subject of computational complexity theory.

• Also in computer programming, termination deals with how a program, process, task, or thread ends its execution, allowing the operating system to reclaim the resources it was using and to pass an exit status to its parent process.

• In numerical analysis, most computations involve working with real numbers, which is a feat provably beyond the capabilities of finite-state machines (which is what all practical digital computers are). In essence, the problem is that an algorithm for computing a real number to infinite precision would never terminate. However, practical algorithms can all be shown to converge, thus, they can be made to terminate simply by accepting a limit on the achievable precision of the computation.

• In telecommunications, termination refers to the delivery of a call to the recipient. For example, if a customer on BT were to call someone on Vodafone, the call's origination lies with BT and the call's termination lies with Vodafone. BT will charge the customer for making the call; in turn, Vodafone will charge BT for providing the termination service.

• In VOIP telephony, termination refers to placing calls that terminate in the PSTN public switched telephone network. See origination.

The field of electronics comprises the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons (or other charge carriers) in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. ... Electrical termination of a signal ceases its energy flow through the electrical circuit. ... Resistor symbols (US and Japan) Resistor symbols (Europe, IEC) A pack of resistors A resistor is a two-terminal electrical or electronic component that resists an electric current by producing a voltage drop between its terminals in accordance with Ohms law. ... Capacitors: SMD ceramic at top left; SMD tantalum at bottom left; through-hole tantalum at top right; through-hole electrolytic at bottom right. ... A transmission line is the material medium or structure that forms all or part of a path from one place to another for directing the transmission of energy, such as electromagnetic waves or acoustic waves, as well as electric power transmission. ... Impedance mismatch has two meanings. ... Computer hardware is the physical part of a computer, including the digital circuitry, as distinguished from the computer software that executes within the hardware. ... Electrical termination of a signal ceases its energy flow through the electrical circuit. ... In computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data or power between computer components inside a computer or between computers and typically is controlled by device driver software. ... Ethernet is a large and diverse family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). ... SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface, and is a standard interface and command set for transferring data between devices on both internal and external computer buses. ... In computer science, computability theory is the branch of the theory of computation that studies which problems are computationally solvable using different models of computation. ... Computer programming (often simply programming or coding) is the craft of writing a set of commands or instructions that can later be compiled and/or interpreted and then inherently transformed to an executable that an electronic machine can execute or run. Programming requires mainly logic, but has elements of science... Flowcharts are often used to graphically represent algorithms. ... In computer science, computational complexity theory is the branch of the theory of computation that studies the complexity, or efficiency, of solving computational problems. ... Computer programming (often simply programming or coding) is the craft of writing a set of commands or instructions that can later be compiled and/or interpreted and then inherently transformed to an executable that an electronic machine can execute or run. Programming requires mainly logic, but has elements of science... The terms computer program, software program, applications program, system software, or just program are used to refer to either an executable program by both lay people and computer programmers or the collection of source code from which an executable program is created (eg, compiled). ... In computing, a process is a running instance of a program, including all variables and other states. ... A task is an execution path through address space. In other words, a set of program instructions that is loaded in memory. ... A thread in computer science is short for a thread of execution. ... An exit, when applied to computing, is when a process terminates execution. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The exit status of a process in computer programming is a small number passed from a child process to a parent process when it is done executing a specific task delegated. ... A parent process is a computer process that has created one or more child processes. ... Numerical analysis is the study of approximate methods for the problems of continuous mathematics (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). ... Please refer to Real vs. ... In the theory of computation, a finite state machine (FSM) or finite state automaton (FSA) is an abstract machine that has only a finite, constant amount of memory. ... ... In the absence of a more specific context, convergence denotes the approach toward a definite value, as time goes on; or to a definite point, a common view or opinion, or toward a fixed or equilibrium state. ... BT Group plc (also known as British Telecommunications plc) which trades as BT (and previously as British Telecom) is the privatised UK state telecommunications operator. ... Vodafone Group plc is a British mobile phone operator headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire, England, is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover and has a market value of about $134 billion (June 2006). ... IP Telephony, also called Internet telephony, is the technology that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the Internet or a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) network instead of dedicated voice transmission lines. ... The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the concatenation of the worlds public circuit-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the concatenation of the worlds public IP-based packet-switched networks. ... Origination in VOIP telephony refers to calls that originate in the PSTN public switched telephone network and are carried to their destination over the Internet. ...

See also

• Halting problem