AES Standards News Blog

The AES Standards Committee is starting a project to update terminology in AES Standards which may be culturally insensitive.  Use of the terms "master" and "slave" are specifically being examined, but others may be as well.  This is a general issue for all products, systems, architectures, and standards that have used those terms heretofore.

To avoid confusion it is also important that replacement terms be consistent with similar efforts being undertaken in the IEEE and SMPTE.  The AESSC has a strong liaison relationship with SMPTE and is looking to form one with the IEEE specifically to assist with this effort.

The committee hopes that in due course it can arrive at a uniform replacement that will work gracefully for the majority of cases, to avoid both opposing extremes:

1. having to develop case-specific solutions for each affected standard;

2. having generic but impossibly awkward terms.

The committee welcomes input on this topic.  Please address all comments and submissions to the Standards Manager.