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Glite Dictionary
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fan-out

fan-out

7.9
The number of other electronic parts a single device can drive
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : salidas
  • In an electronic circuit, the fan-out determines how many components can be connected to a single output.

Examples

  • The design must ensure that the fan-out of the signal is sufficient for all connected devices.

  • Engineers calculate the fan-out to optimize the performance of the circuit design.

  • Just this time it's memory stacked on top of memory, and Samsung calls this fan out wafer level packaging.

  • Front-end processing begins with a design that may contain idealized clocks (i.e., no clock-repowering networks), where a clock simply fans out to each target latch.

    Academic text (1996)

Surface Forms

fan-out singular
fan-outs plural

Morphology

fan-out = fan (semi-transparent) = out + fan

The components 'fan' and 'out' are clear, but the specific meaning in electronics is metaphorical. [Postprocessing: moved 'out' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Fan-out comes from the picture of a fan opening out to many blades. In electronics a fan-out is how many other circuits one output can 'connect to', so it shows how many devices one signal can safely reach.