electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

, a signal trace or circuit trace on a

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

(PCB) or

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

(IC) is the equivalent of a

wire file:Sample cross-section of high tension power (pylon) line.jpg, Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample d ...

for

conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or Choir, choral concert. It has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture." The primary d ...

signal A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

s. Each trace consists of a flat, narrow part of the

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

foil that remains after etching. Signal traces are usually narrower than power or ground traces because the current carrying requirements are usually much less.

References

Electrical connectors Printed circuit board manufacturing {{electronics-stub

See also

References