Industry standards in electronics

Author: Laura Kachnavage @Samtec (Translated from English)

Standards are primarily about compatibility and interoperability. End customers, especially government agencies and their contractors, prefer standardization over customization to reduce costs, improve availability and shorten lead times. Think of it like a blueprint for a house, where the contractor ensures that the foundation, wiring and plumbing are clearly defined and repeatable, while the style, colors and furnishings are left to the designer's taste.

Companies with legitimate and sometimes competing interests work together with representatives from science and research in working groups and technical committees to develop industry standards. Extensive research and development work is required, sometimes taking years, to examine all the details and ensure that the objectives are achieved.

Standards often define plug-in modules, mezzanine cards, daughter cards and backplanes. They usually also define a connector type, such as the connectors developed and manufactured by Samtec. These connectors are selected based on their pinout, material selection, mechanical properties and PCB terminations to ensure they meet the robustness and performance requirements of the end-use environment. They can also control how data is transmitted and received between devices.

Due to the wide range of connectivity solutions Samtec offers, we participate in a variety of standardization bodies. These committees are typically formed around the end-use environment, such as mission-critical military and aerospace systems or scalable, cost-effective solutions for industrial automation, telecommunications and edge computing applications. Examples include VITA, SOSA, PICMG and SGeT. As a member of these working groups, Samtec brings its expertise in connectivity solutions to ensure the best solution for all requirements, meeting both the physical and electrical performance requirements for each application.

As technology advances and requirements change, older standards are often reviewed to either revise them or use them as the basis for a new standard. Due to existing acceptance and application by the communities that use them, new standards are often built on an older standard whose purpose is still valid, but which may be smaller, faster and provide better signal integrity than before.

An immense amount of effort is invested in the development of each standard. As a result, the products developed can have a long life span of 10 to 20+ years. Thanks to the ease of doing business known as Samtec Sudden Service® and our high quality standards, Samtec products are often selected for these standards.

Below are some examples of Samtec products that are used in common standards in the electronics industry.