substrate

American  

[suhb-streyt] / ˈsʌb streɪt /

noun

1. a substratum.

2. Biochemistry. the substance acted upon by an enzyme.

3. Electronics. a supporting material on which a circuit is formed or fabricated.

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substrate British  

/ ˈsʌbstreɪt /

noun

1. biochem the substance upon which an enzyme acts

2. another word for substratum

3. electronics the semiconductor base on which other material is deposited, esp in the construction of integrated circuits

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substrate Scientific  

/ sŭb′strāt′ /

1. The material or substance on which an enzyme acts.

2. See more at enzyme

3. The surface on or in which plants, algae, or certain animals, such as barnacles or clams, live or grow. A substrate may serve as a source of food for an organism or simply provide support.

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Etymology

Origin of substrate

First recorded in 1570–80; variant of substratum

Example Sentences

In the morning, the rumble of rock-grinding machines, which crush through buckets of substrate, could be heard before the savannah's fauna began its daily chorus.

From Barron's

Items in short supply include the ultrathin layers of silicon substrate some chips require and memory chips, the semiconductors that feed data to AI processors and help store the results of computations.

From The Wall Street Journal

By carefully choosing the substrate and fine-tuning the growth conditions, they were able to control how the crystal structure formed.

From Science Daily

We can’t point to the specific physical processes that generate subjective experience in our own brains, much less rule out that different substrates might achieve it through different mechanisms.

From The Wall Street Journal

If we want a serious account of how brains compute, and what it would take to build minds in other substrates, we first need a broader definition of what "computation" can be.

From Science Daily