Page 396 - A Practical Guide from Design Planning to Manufacturing

366 Glossary

Flip-chip (FC) A method for creating electrical connections between a die and
package by placing solder bumps on the face of the die and then turning the die
facedown on the package substrate and applying heat and/or pressure. See wire
bond package.

Flip-flop (FF) A storage sequential circuit that captures the data on its input
at each new rising edge of a clock signal.
Floating-point execution unit (FPU) The portion of a microprocessor respon-
sible for computation involving floating-point numbers.
Floating point Numbers formatted in scientific notation as a fraction and an
exponent.
Flux Chemicals that help solder flow and create good electrical connections by
preventing the formation of oxides.
Focused ion beam (FIB) edit Altering an integrated circuit design by cutting
or depositing structures using a FIB process. This allows design changes to be
tested before new masks are made.
FPGA Field programmable gate array.
FPU Floating-point execution unit.

FR4 Flame retardant material type 4.
Front-side bus (FSB) A bus connecting the processor and the chipset.
Fully associative cache A cache memory where the data from any memory
address can be stored in any location in the cache.
Gate leakage Leakage current through the gate oxide of a MOSFET.
Gate oxide The layer of insulation separating the gate terminal and the
channel of a MOSFET.
Gate terminal The MOSFET terminal controlling whether current will flow
between the source and drain.
Gigabyte (GB) 2 30 or approximately 1 billion bytes.
GMCH Graphics and memory controller hub.
GPU Graphics processor unit.
Graphics memory controller hub (GMCH) A chipset component controlling
communication between the processor and main memory and containing a built-
in graphic processor. Also called the Northbridge.
Graphics processor unit (GPU) A processor specifically designed to create
graphics images.
Grid array package An integrated circuit package using multiple rows of leads
on all four sides of the package.
Gull-wing pin A package pin that bends outward.