Managing Power Electronics: VLSI and DSP-Driven Computer Systems

Glossary

ACMs	Adaptive Computing Machines.
Active components	Transistors like NPN, PNP, NMOS, CMOS etc. The specialty of a transistor is that it can amplify, namely yield an output electrical signal bigger than the signal at its input. For this reason these devices are characterized as “active”.
Air gap	The gap in the typically doughnut shaped magnetic core of an inductor. The gap width times the area of the doughnut cross section is the volume in which the inductor's energy is stored.
ANSYS	ANSYS, Inc.—computer-aided engineering technology and engineering design analysis software products and services.
BCD	Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS.
Bipolar	The process technology yielding NPN and PNP transistors.
Bipolar circuit	A circuit built with bipolar transistors such as NPN and PNP transistors.
Bricks	A DC-DC converter built according to industry standard footprint. Examples of form factors are: the popular 1/4 Brick (2.28" × 1.45") and the newly defined 1/16 Brick (1.1" × 0.9").
BOM	Bill Of Materials.
Boost	A device or technique that produces an output voltage above the input voltage.
Buck converter	A voltage regulator that produces an output lower than its input. Also called step down (and sometimes step-down) converter. The term “buck” appears to be just another reference to the lower value of the output or as the American Heritage Dictionary puts it “of the lowest rank in a category.”
Buck xDSP core	Step down regulator (buck) for DSP core.
Buffer	Transfers voltage ...