Glossary of Industry Terms

Design for Assembly (DFA) is a process by which products are designed with ease of assembly in mind. If a product contains fewer parts it will take less time to assemble, thereby reducing assembly costs. In addition, if the parts are provided with features which make it easier to grasp, move, orient and insert them, this will also reduce assembly time and assembly costs. The reduction of the number of parts in an assembly has the added benefit of generally reducing the total cost of parts in the assembly. This is usually where the major cost benefits of the application of design for assembly occur.

The design methodology called design for manufacturability (DFM) includes a set of techniques to modify the design of integrated circuits (IC) in order to make them more manufacturable, i.e., to improve their functional yield, parametric yield, or their reliability.

Electronic manufacturing services (EMS) is term used for companies that design, test, manufacture, distribute and provide return/repair services for electronic component and assemblies for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

An electromagnetic coil (or simply a "coil") is formed when a conductor (usually a solid copper wire) is wound around a core or form to create an inductor or electromagnet. One loop of wire is usually referred to as a turn, and a coil consists of one or more turns. For use in an electronic circuit, electrical connection terminals called taps are often connected to a coil. Coils are often coated with varnish and/or wrapped with insulating tape to provide additional insulation and secure them in place. A completed coil assembly with taps etc. is often called a winding.

A ferrite bead is a passive electric component used to suppress high frequency noise in electronic circuits. Ferrite beads employ the mechanism of high dissipation of high frequency currents in a ferrite to build high frequency noise suppression devices. Ferrite beads may also be called ferrite cores, ferrite rings, ferrite EMI filters, or mistakenly as ferrous beads

A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, or traces, etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. Alternative names are printed wiring board (PWB), and etched wiring board. A PCB populated with electronic components is a printed circuit assembly (PCA), also known as a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA).


The Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment 2002/95/EC[1] (commonly referred to as the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or RoHS) was adopted in February 2003 by the European Union. The RoHS directive took effect on 1 July 2006, and is required to be enforced and become law in each member state. This directive restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. It is closely linked with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) 2002/96/EC which sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for electrical goods and is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of huge amounts of toxic e-waste.

Solid-state electronic components, devices, and systems are based entirely on the semiconductor, such as transistors, chips and bubble memory. In solid-state components, there is no mechanical action, or no moving parts, although a considerable amount of electromagnetic action takes place within. The expression was especially prevalent in the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the transition from vacuum tube technology to the semiconductor diode and transistor. More recently, the integrated circuit (IC), the light-emitting diode (LED), and the liquid-crystal display (LCD) have evolved as further examples of solid-state devices.

Surface-mount technology (SMT) is a method for constructing electronic circuits in which the components (SMC, or Surface Mounted Components) are mounted directly onto the surface of printed circuit boards (PCBs). Electronic devices so made are called surface-mount devices or SMDs. In the industry it has largely replaced the through-hole technology construction method of fitting components with wire leads into holes in the circuit board.

Through-hole technology, also spelled "thru-hole", refers to the mounting scheme used for electronic components that involves the use of pins on the components that are inserted into holes drilled in printed circuit boards (PCB) and soldered to pads on the opposite side.

(Source: Wikipedia)