58 Appendix C: Glossary
•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.
• 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.
•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.
•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.
•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.
•Bus
A pathway along which signals are sent, generally in two directions, for
communication of data.
• 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.