72 Appendix D: Glossary
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ASIC
Application-specific integrated circuit
. An integrated circuit
custom-made to meet the requirements of a specific
application. It integrates several digital and/or analog
functions into a single die. This results in a reduction in cost,
board area, and power consumption, while improving
performance when compared to an equivalent
implementation using off-the-shelf components.
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Backplane
A circuit board that acts as a pathway between multiple
boards. For example, if a backplane is inserted between the
VMChannels of two Matrox Meteor-II boards, the boards can
share data through their VMChannel.
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Band
One of the surfaces of a buffer. A grayscale image requires
just one band. A color image requires three bands, one for
each color component.
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Bandwidth
A term describing the capacity to transfer data. Greater
bandwidth is needed to sustain a higher transfer rate.
Greater bandwidth can be achieved, for example, by using a
wider bus.
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Bit
A digit of a binary number. Images are described as 1-bit,
8-bit, 16-bit, etc. The numbers indicate the bits available to
store the value of each pixel in the image.
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Bus
A pathway along which signals are sent, generally in two
directions, for communication of data.
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Color component
One of the components that make up a color space. Typically,
each component of a color image is stored in a separate band
of a multi-band buffer.
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