PDU and TPDU

In telecommunications, the term protocol data unit (PDU) has the following meanings:

1. Information that is delivered as a unit among peer entities of a network and that may contain control information, address information, or data.
2. In layered systems, a unit of data that is specified in a protocol of a given layer and that consists of protocol-control information of the given layer and possibly user data of that layer. For example: Bridge PDU or iSCSI PDU

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C

PDUs are relevant in relation to one of the first 4 layers of the OSI model as follows:
1. The Layer 1 PDU is the bit
2. The Layer 2 PDU is the frame
3. The Layer 3 PDU is the packet
4. The Layer 4 PDU is the segment (e.g. TCP segment)

An unformal acronym TPDU (Transport Protocol Data Unit) for messages sent from transport entity to transport entity. Thus, TPDUs (exchanged by the transport layer) are contained in packets (exchanged by the network layer). In turn, packets are contained in frames (exchanged by the data link layer).

Figure 6-3. Nesting of TPDUs, packets, and frames.