JEDEC

The origin of JEDEC can be traced back to 1944, when the Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA), and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) established the Joint Electron Tube Engineering Council (JETEC) to coordinate vacuum tube type numberings. The expansion of the radio industry caused JETEC to expand its scope to include solid-state devices and develop standards for semiconductor devices. Eventually, the joint JETEC activity of EIA and NEMA was renamed into Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) in 1958. NEMA discontinued its involvement in 1979.

Earlier in the 20th century, the organization was known as JETEC, the Joint Electron Tube Engineering Council, and was responsible for assigning and coordinating RETMA tube designations to electron tubes (also called valves). The type 6L6, still to be found in electric-guitar amplifiers, typically has a type number that was assigned by JETEC.

In the fall of 1999, JEDEC became a separate trade association under the current name, but maintained an EIA alliance.

This early work was followed by a number of test methods, JESD22, and product standards. For example, the ESD caution symbol, which is the hand with the line drawn through it, was published by JEDEC and is used worldwide. JEDEC also has a dictionary of semiconductor terms. All of JEDEC standards are free on the Web for downloading after a free registration.

JEDEC has issued widely used standards for device interfaces, such as the JEDEC memory standards for computer memory (RAM), including the DDR SDRAM standards.