A wait state is a processing cycle of a microprocessor during which it briefly waits for an operation to occur and complete before resuming activity. A program or process in a wait state is inactive for the duration of the wait state. For example, the central processing unit (CPU) working with a word processing program might communicate with main memory (sometimes called random-access memory or RAM) for a particular instruction, and then go into a wait state until it receives a message back from memory. A wait state may refer to a "variable" length of time that a program has to wait before it can be processed, or to a "fixed" duration of time, such as one or more machine cycles. Wait state is also called a "time-out" period during which the CPU (often interchangeably called a microprocessor) or bus (the collection of wires through which...