Glossary Of Terms

The following are engineering industry terms with emphasis on Environmental testing

HALT = Highly Accelerated Life Testing

HAT = Highly Accelerated Testing (similar to HALT but specific to some companies/industries)

HASS = Highly Accelerated Stress Screening

AGREE = Department of Defence Advisory Group on Reliability of Electronic Equipment

BEST = Board Electronic Strife Test

ESS = Environmental Stress Screening

HASA = Highly Accelerated Stress Audit

LATENT Fault = A hidden defect yet to emerge, & that may only emerge in operational service

LN2 = Liquid Nitrogen

GN2 = Gaseous Nitrogen

NDT = Non Destructive Testing

VLSI = Very Large Scale Integration (microchip terminology)

SMT = Surface Mount Technology (small electronic component mounting technique)

THP = Through Hole Plated (circuit board design feature)

POS = Proof of Screen

UUT = Unit Under Test (term used mainly in Aerospace and electronics)

EOL = End of Line (usually product line)

DVT = Design Verification Testing

DUT = Device under test [semiconductor origins.]

Torr = Measurement of vacuum.

Testing Equipment

In the Product Environmental Testing technologies some equipment has a number of names to describe it some with more precision than others although many have a generic meaning that is more specific in some contexts.

An environmental Test chamber may be called…

Thermal chamber, environmental oven, Test chamber, Climatic chamber, climatic oven, humidity chamber, humidity oven etc. The word cabinet is occasionally also substituted for chamber or oven. Any of the above could be a device capable of both heating and cooling, it may or may not have humidity control.
Chambers can also be “rooms” if large enough and at the other end of the scale the term “benchtop” can be applied to most variations for small units.

Additional guide notes.

Often terms exist with entirely different meanings in different industries & technologies e.g. URL in controls engineering generally refers to UPPER RANGE LIMIT. In IT & computing URL generally means UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR.

Lots of these terms are not formally well defined. They are common use, or custom and practice terms that may be interpreted differently in different technology sectors/industries.

Other occasionally encountered more general terms.

URL = Upper Range Limit. (instrumentation term)

URL = Uniform Resource Locator (computing term)

TPE = Total Probable Error. (instrumentation term)

CPI = Chemical Processing Industry.

PCI = Process Control Instrumentation.

EPIC = Engineer Procure Install Commission

EBIT = Earnings Before Interest & Tax. (financial)

CAGR = Compound Annual Growth Rate (financial)

CAAGR = Compound Average Annual Growth Rate (financial)

SPC = Sales Profit Centre. ((financial)

FSD = Full Scale Deflection (instrumentation term)

MRO = Maintain Repair Replace Overhaul (manufacturing industry)

OTIF = On Time In Full (usually refers to goods delivery although can apply to other services)

BOOT = Build Operate Own Transfer (contractual description)

BOT = Build Own Transfer (project financing structure)

TLA = Three Letter Acronym

SCADA = Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (controls and instrumentation industry)

HMI = Human Machine Interface. (controls industry)

MIP’s = Molecular Imprinted Polymers.

FBO = Fixed base operators (military term?)

CBT = Computer based training

RONA = Return On Net Assets (financial)

ROTC = Return On Total Capital (financial)

If your definition disagrees with any of these definitions you are welcome to advise us of your view, you may have valuable information to share!

* Please consult a recognised & approved standard for exact conversions.