Jargon Buster

Sometimes it is difficult to get a concise description of a particular term, or fault, or process, or …… just about anything. The Electronics industry is littered with its own terminology.

EMTWorldWide has teamed up with The SMART Group (Europe's leading trade association for the electronics manufacturing industry) to create our Jargon Buster. This library of industry-specific information is constantly growing. If there is a subject you would like us to cover then please let us know just click here to enter your idea.

Latest Jargon

0201 Chip Components (07 December 2001)
0201 is the latest solution to design and production of miniaturised products - or is it the latest threat to production yields? Based on process trials to date the former is correct, the latter less of an issue than first thought. 0201 chip... ...FULL STORY

Acoustic micro imaging (AMI) (07 October 2003)
The use of Acoustic micro imaging (AMI) in the failure analysis laboratory is relatively new and has become an integral part of the modern analysis tool kit. The technique is nondestructive in nature and gives important information about the samples... ...FULL STORY

Bill of Materials (09 April 2010)
The term ‘BOM’ is frequently used, but what exactly does it mean? In its simplest form, a Bill of Materials (sometimes also called Build of Materials), or BOM, is a list of all the components, connectors, terminations and wires that make up one... ...FULL STORY

Blow Holes or Pin Holes (07 November 2006)
These are considered by many people as defects in plated-through hole solder joints. In reality they have little effect on the reliability of the solder joint but they can be avoided or eliminated. The last time this author conducted reliability... ...FULL STORY

Bottom Termination Component (05 November 2010)
There are many components that fall into this category and are simply semiconductors that have termination/solderable areas fully under the body of the component or protruding to the edge of the component. Land Grid Array (LGA), Quad Flat No Lead... ...FULL STORY

CAF (07 June 2002)
'Conductive Anodic Filamentation' (also referred to as CFF - Conductive Filament Formation) is a sub-surface failure mode of woven glass reinforced epoxy laminate PCB substrates. In the presence of voltage and moisture, conductive filaments... ...FULL STORY

Capillary action (17 March 2011)
Capillary is an interaction between a liquid and a small diameter channel or opening in a solid object. Because of the physics involved, if the liquid can wet the sides of the solid channel or opening, surface tension will draw the liquid up into... ...FULL STORY

Cleanliness testing (26 May 2011)
Contaminometers, omegameter, and ionographs are all well-known commercial instruments used to measure ionic residues on the surface of electronic assemblies. They operate by immersing the sample bare board or assembly into a pre-determined volume of... ...FULL STORY

Component compatibility to cleaning (17 February 2011)
With many companies re-examining cleaning as a standard manufacturing process, component compatibility must be assessed at the design stage. The issues relating to cleaning are being considered due to the increase in the use of conformal coating.... ...FULL STORY

Component Footprint or Pad - Jargon Buster (18 February 2008)
Surface mount and area array pads need to be a particular shape that corresponds to the size and shape of the component termination which is to be mounted on it. The proper shape and size of the pads will allow satisfactory, printing, placement and... ...FULL STORY