Electronics & Hardware Slang Glossary

 

Electronics & Hardware Slang Glossary

Faults & Failure

Term	Meaning
magic smoke	The (joking) idea that components work because of smoke inside them — "let the magic smoke out" = you fried it
cold solder joint	A weak, poorly bonded solder connection that causes intermittent faults
ground loop	Unwanted current path formed by multiple ground connections, causing noise/hum
floating pin	A pin/input left unconnected, picking up unpredictable voltage
ringing	Unwanted oscillation on a signal edge, often from poor impedance matching
bounce (switch bounce)	Rapid, unwanted on/off toggling when a mechanical switch is pressed
chatter	Same idea — a relay/switch rapidly opening and closing instead of settling
brownout	A drop in supply voltage that isn't a full outage but can cause resets/glitches
latch-up	A parasitic short-circuit state a chip can get stuck in until power is cycled
thermal runaway	A feedback loop where heat causes more current draw, which causes more heat
short	An unintended low-resistance connection between two points
open	A break in a circuit that should be connected
noise floor	The baseline level of unwanted signal/interference in a system
crosstalk	Unwanted coupling of a signal from one wire/trace onto a neighboring one
ripple	Residual AC variation left on a DC supply after rectification/filtering
ghost voltage	A misleading voltage reading caused by capacitive coupling or a high-impedance meter
phantom power	Unintended voltage appearing on a line, often through leakage or another circuit
backfeeding	Power entering a circuit through an unintended pin or connection
ground bounce	Temporary voltage differences on a shared ground caused by rapidly changing currents
power-on glitch	An unwanted transient during startup
brownout reset	A reset triggered when supply voltage falls below the MCU's safe threshold
hiccup	A device repeatedly starting, shutting down, and restarting because of an overload/fault
hiccup mode	Protection behavior where a power supply periodically retries after detecting a fault
rail collapse	A supply voltage dropping dramatically when a circuit demands too much current
shoot-through	Both sides of a switching bridge conducting simultaneously, causing a large current spike
ESD hit	Damage or malfunction caused by an electrostatic discharge
zap	Informal term for damaging electronics with an electrical transient
brick	To render a device completely unusable, often through bad firmware or electrical damage
flaky	Unreliable or intermittent behavior
haunted	A joking description of a circuit behaving inexplicably
intermittent	A fault that appears and disappears unpredictably
works on the bench	Works during testing but fails in the actual installation/environment

 

PCB & Prototyping

Term	Meaning
breadboard it	Build a quick prototype before committing to a final design
bodge / bodge wire	A hacky manual wire fix added to a PCB to correct a design mistake
jellybean part	A cheap, generic, widely available component (e.g. a common resistor)
bring-up	The process of getting a new board powered on and verified for the first time
smoke test	Powering something on for the first time to see if it visibly fails
rework	Manually fixing/modifying a populated PCB after assembly
kludge	An inelegant but working fix, same spirit as a software hack
green wire fix	Same as bodge wire — a visible patch wire added after the fact
rat's nest	Disorganized, tangled wiring
dead bug	A prototyping technique of soldering directly to an IC's legs with it upside-down
blue wire	A visible jumper/modification added to correct a PCB design
wire mod	A manual wiring modification to an existing PCB
air wire	A wire used to connect two points without following the PCB trace layout
dead board	A board that doesn't function, often during bring-up/debugging
rev	Revision of a PCB/design — e.g. "This is Rev C"
spin	A new PCB revision produced to fix problems — "We need another spin"
first spin	The first manufactured version of a PCB
golden board	A known-good board used as a reference during testing
Frankenboard	A heavily modified or assembled-from-parts board
wire spaghetti	Excessively messy wiring
ratsnest	The temporary connection lines shown by PCB CAD software before routing
tombstoning	A tiny SMD component standing upright after reflow
head-in-pillow	A BGA solder defect where the solder balls don't properly join
solder bridge	Unwanted solder connection between adjacent pads/pins
pad lift	A PCB pad physically separating from the board
trace cut	Deliberately cutting a PCB trace to isolate a connection
via stitching	Adding multiple vias to connect copper regions, usually grounds

 

Embedded Slang

Term	Meaning
bare metal	Programming a microcontroller directly without an operating system
register banging	Directly manipulating hardware registers
bit banging	Implementing a communication protocol manually using GPIO
GPIO gymnastics	Complicated manipulation of GPIO pins to achieve some hardware behavior
pin mux hell	Struggling with peripherals competing for the same MCU pins
pin hog	A peripheral or feature consuming pins needed elsewhere
interrupt storm	Excessive interrupts overwhelming the processor
ISR hell	A system becoming difficult to manage because of interrupt-heavy code
watchdog bite	A watchdog timer resetting the MCU
watchdogging	Using a watchdog to recover from firmware hangs
hard fault	A serious MCU exception, especially common terminology on ARM Cortex-M
stack smash	Stack corruption caused by memory misuse
stack overflow	Exhausting available stack memory
heap fragmentation	Dynamic memory becoming fragmented over time
memory leak	Allocated memory that is no longer properly released
brownout dance	Repeated MCU resets caused by unstable power
boot loop	Device repeatedly restarting during startup
bootloader dance	Informal description of repeatedly entering/exiting bootloader mode during flashing/debugging
watchdog reset	Reset caused by firmware failing to service the watchdog
flash it	Program firmware into the MCU's flash memory
brick it	Make the device unusable, often by flashing bad firmware
unbrick	Recover a device from a failed firmware state
firmware spaghetti	Messy, difficult-to-maintain embedded firmware

 

Debugging

Term	Meaning
scope it	Look at a signal with an oscilloscope
meter it	Measure it with a multimeter
probe around	Check various points looking for the fault
follow the signal	Trace a signal through the circuit
chase the gremlin	Hunt down a strange/intermittent fault
shotgun debugging	Replace/change many things hoping one fixes the problem
shotgun a board	Replace several components without first identifying the actual fault
divide and conquer	Isolate sections of a circuit to narrow down a fault
known-good	A component/board/configuration proven to work
golden reference	A known-good reference used for comparison
sanity check	Basic measurement to verify an assumption
poke it with a scope	Informally inspect signals with an oscilloscope
walk the signal	Follow a signal from source to destination
trust but verify	Don't assume the schematic/code is correct; measure it
works until I touch it	A classic description of an intermittent hardware fault
sniff the bus	Passively monitor communication on a data bus
gremlin	An intermittent, hard-to-reproduce hardware fault
fry	Destroy a component, usually with excess voltage/current
pop	A component failing suddenly/audibly (e.g. "the cap popped")

 

Power Electronics

Term	Meaning
load dump	A large voltage transient caused by sudden interruption of current in an inductive system
inrush	Initial surge of current when power is applied
current hog	A component/device that consumes unusually large current
power hog	Same idea, referring to overall power consumption
rail	A particular supply voltage, e.g. 3.3 V rail or 5 V rail
rail-to-rail	Signal or amplifier behavior reaching close to both supply rails
crowbar	Protection circuit that deliberately creates a short to trigger protection/fuse action
hot plug	Connecting a powered device while the system is already running
cold plug	Connecting only while the system is powered down
hot swap	Replacing hardware without powering down the system
current limit	A protection mechanism preventing excessive current
foldback	Power supply reducing output current/voltage under overload
pull-up / pull-down	A resistor used to hold a pin at a known logic level by default
decoupling cap	A capacitor placed near a chip to smooth out local power supply noise
flyback diode	A diode used to protect against voltage spikes from inductive loads (e.g. relays, motors)
snubber	A circuit (often RC) used to suppress voltage spikes/arcing across a switch
bodge cap	An extra capacitor added after the fact to fix a noise/stability problem
glue logic	Small extra logic chips used to connect two larger components with incompatible interfaces

 

Engineer Humor

Term	Meaning
"The smoke escaped."	The component is dead.
"It passed the smoke test."	It survived first power-up.
"It's not a bug, it's a hardware feature."	Sarcastic explanation of an unintended behavior.
"The electrons are angry."	Something is behaving unexpectedly.
"It's haunted."	Nobody can explain the behavior.
"Give it the magic touch."	Touching/moving something mysteriously makes it work.
"Don't touch it; it's working."	The universal engineering superstition.
"One more jumper and it'll be production-ready."	Obviously sarcastic.
"It's only temporary."	The famous permanent bodge.
"We'll fix it in the next revision."	The current PCB is staying as-is.
"Works on my bench."	It fails somewhere else.
"The datasheet said..."	Usually followed by discovering something important was overlooked.
"Read the errata."	The chip has a documented silicon bug.
"It's within spec."	Technically acceptable, even though it looks terrible.
"Magic smoke containment failure."	Something just fried.