Stuffing a board means populating it with components, and a stuffed board is an assembled one as opposed to a bare board. The word comes from hand-inserting through-hole parts but is used for any assembly method. Engineers often ask for partly stuffed boards when they want to bring up a design one section at a time, leaving the rest unpopulated.
Heard on the job
Have them stuff only the power supply section on two of the boards, we'll bring those up first.
Also heard as
- populate
- load
Related terms
Bring-up
Methodical first power-up and debugging of a new board, section by section, until everything works.
Pick-and-place
Automated machine that picks surface mount parts from reels and trays and sets them on a pasted board.
BOM
Bill of materials: list of every part on an assembly with designators, values and part numbers.