Glossary & Acronyms - National Technology Inc.

ACF

Anisotropic conductive film

ACTIVE COMPONENT

A component which adds energy to the signal it passes, e.g., transistors, rectifiers, diode, amplifiers, oscillators, mechanical relays and almost all IC’s.

AEA

American Electronics Association.

ALKALINE

A chemical that measures over 7 on a pH scale.

ANALOG CIRCUIT

A circuit in which the output varies as a continuous function of the input, as opposed to a digital circuit.

ANDON BOARD

A lighted overhead electronic display that gives the current status of the production system and alerts team members to emerging problems.

ANNULAR RING

The copper ring around the hole in a printed wiring board

AOI

Automate Optical Inspection

AOT

Automated optical test

APERTURE

An indexed shape with a specified x and y dimension, or line-type with a specified width, used as a basic element or object by a photoplotter in plotting geometric patterns on film. The index of the aperture is its position or D code.

APERTURE LIST

An ASCII text data file which describes the size and shape of the apertures used by a photoplotter for any one photoplot.

APICS

American Production and Inventory Control Society.

APPROVED VENDOR LIST (AVL)

Parts list specifying the approved manufacturer and part number.

AQL

Acceptable Quality Level

ARRAY

A group of printed circuits (called modules) arrayed in a panel and handled by both the board house and the assembly house as though it were a single printed wiring board.

ARTWORK

Artwork for printed circuit design is photoplotted film, NC Drill File and documentation which are all used by a board house to manufacture a bare PWB.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is the basis of character sets used in almost all present-day computers.

ASIC

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit

ASIC DESIGN

Ability to design an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip. An ASIC chip is custom designed for a specific application, in contrast to a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor.

ASPECT RATIO

The ratio of the circuit board thickness to the diameter of the smallest drilled hole

ATE

Automated Test Equipment

ATG

Automated Test Generation

AUTO-INSERTION (AI)

A method/equipment used to insert pin-through-hole components to printed wiring boards (PWB’s).

AXI

Automatic X-ray Inspection