Gate Array

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What Does Gate Array Mean?

A gate array is a specific engineering design for printed circuit boards. It allows for more versatility, but can also lead to certain kinds of wasted design in some situations. Gate arrays are part of the overall infrastructure equation for the physical circuit boards that power numerous types of hardware and devices.

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A gate array is also known as an uncommitted logic array.

Techopedia Explains Gate Array

Experts often consider gate arrays as part of a specific kind of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that allow for printed circuit board development, along with the development of the hardware and software systems that these components go into.

In general, this type of chip is a prefabricated chip using NAND or other logical gates, often in a scenario where engineers might include different sets of transistors and resistors that, although built into the circuit board, are not connected for logical operation. One type of gate array called a field-programmable gate array offers clients the ability to do more engineering on their end of a project.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.