thumb|400px|Different types and colors of jumpers, with two individual black jumper pins on the left for scale.

In electronics and particularly computing, a jumper is a short length of conductor used to close, open or bypass part of an electronic circuit. They are typically used to set up or configure printed circuit boards, such as the motherboards of computers. The process of setting a jumper is often called strapping.

A strapping option is a hardware configuration setting usually sensed only during power-up or bootstrapping of a device (or even a single chip).

Permanent parts of a circuit

Some printed wiring assemblies, particularly those using single-layer circuit boards, include short lengths of wire soldered between pairs of points. These wires are called wire bridges or jumpers, but unlike jumpers used for configuration settings, they are intended to permanently connect the points in question. They are used to solve layout issues of the printed wiring, providing connections that would otherwise require awkward (or in some cases, impossible) routing of the conductive traces. In some cases a resistor of 0 ohms is used instead of a wire, as these may be installed by the same robotic assembly machines that install real resistors and other components.

Jumpers setting configuration options not normally meant to be user-configurable can also be implemented as solder jumpers, typically two (or more) pads positioned closely together or even with interwoven shapes. Typically non-conductive by default they can be easily changed into a closed connection due to deliberately placed solder bridge on top of them. If the closed state is the default state, the PCB designer can superimpose a thin trace, which would be cut (with a knife) to open the jumper.

See also

  • Busbar
  • DIP switch
  • Fuse
  • Jump wire
  • Pin header
  • Tri-level input

References

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