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In telecommunication and electronics, the term duty cycle has the following meanings: duty cycle where D is the so-called duty cycle; is the duration that the function is non-zero; is the period of the function. For example, in an ideal pulse train (one having rectangular pulses), the duty cycle is the pulse duration divided by the pulse period. For a pulse train in which the pulse duration is 1 μs and the pulse period is 4 μs, the duty cycle is 0.25. The duty cycle of a square wave is 0.5, or 50%. For another example, for a piece of electrical equipment, like an electric motor, the period for which it may be operated without deleterious effects, such as from overheating. Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is used in some music synthesizers to vary the duty-cycle of an oscillator during the performance, which has a subtle effect on the tone colors obtained.
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