A minigun is a multibarreled machine gun with a high rate of fire (several thousand rounds per minute), employing Gatling-style rotating barrels. More technically, a minigun is an externally powered Gatling gun of rifle caliber, though the term is sometimes used more generally to refer to guns of similar rates of fire and configuration regardless of power source. Although the term was originally specific to a particular weapon produced by General Electric, it has since been applied to a number of other weapons, many of which were derived from that design.