saturation

saturation: 1. In a communications system, the condition in which a component of the system has reached its maximum traffic handling capacity. Note: Saturation is equivalent to one erlang per circuit. 2. The point at which the output of a linear device, such as a linear amplifier, deviates significantly from being a linear function of the input when the input signal is increased. (188) Note: Modulation often requires that amplifiers operate below saturation.

This HTML version of FS-1037C was last generated on Fri Aug 23 00:22:38 MDT 1996