⁹There is a design reason for this. Most digital multimeters are designed to be used on semiconductor circuits, where the minimum “turn-on” voltage of a silicon PN junction is approximately 500 to 700 millivolts. The diode-check function must output more than that, in order to force a PN junction into forward conduction. However, it is useful to be able to check ohmic resistance in a circuit without activating any PN junctions, and so the resistance measurement function typically uses test voltages less than 500 millivolts.