This question has been discussed numerous times at IPC meetings and usually enables a fair amount of emotion.
All of the following are possible uses, depending on your age, geographic location (slang usage), and where/how you got your training. I'm sure there are more.
PB - printed board. the most generic term for a bare board
PWB - printed wiring board, one of the first uses when the issue was only a point to point connection.
PCB - printed circuit board, where the width, side to side and multi-layer relationship(spacing) of conductor runs has or is designed to have a specific effect on circuit operation other than just a point to point connection. Circuit impedance is a primary issue. In approximately 1999 the IPC Technical Activities Executive Committee made a mandate to only use the term PCB for all new document development because more often than not the printed circuitry design will have an impact on function.
PWA - printed wire assembly - older use
PCA - printed circuit assembly - logical to use with the 1999 change to PCB.
PCBA - printed circuit board assembly - multiplerequests/comments (strong push) from users and technical committees in Asia and Europe to use this as the preferred term.
Embedded active or passive components opens up a whole new range of possibilities as well.
While it would be good to have a single term (or pair of terms for bare boards and assemblies) reality is that there are many IPCdocuments of various age using different terms and many more book and magazine article authors, conference lecturers, etc., that pretty much use whatever term they are most comfortable with.
If preparing a document; it would be appropriate to use a term that most of the expected users would understand. In the world of electronics technology, it would seem that most usersshould be able to understand the content when any of these terms are used.
I think the standard naming should be updated to CWC "Circuit Wiring Carrier". This would include rigid, rigid-flex, flex, and any other exotic of the like, and would also be inclusive of all process technologies that would yield the same general commodity as the end result. Any kind of common sense update would be refreshing!
M.C., PHO-TRONICS, USA
Another consideration - although "PCB" was the most commonly used term years ago, during the 1970's and 80's there was a lot of negative publicity about polychlorinated biphenyls (aka PCBs) as carcinogenic environmental pollutants, and the circuit board industry in the U.S. turned to favor "PWB" to avoid any confusion or association with those pollutants.
Karl Wengenroth, Enthone, Inc., USA
I have been in this industry for well over 35 years, and what we are talking about have always been referred to as PCBs. There was actually something we called a printed wire board that was literally wires laid down on a board with a coating of resin covering it to keep the wires in place. At the time there weren't multilayer boards, so high density could be achieved this way. It was sort of like wire wrap, but the wires were "welded" to the pads instead of wrapped.
Jeff L Sorensen, Teridian Semiconductor, USA
Printed circuit boards is the modern term for the bare board, also called the fabricated board. Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) is the term used to describe the finished assembly, not PWA.
Richard Stadem, General Dynamics AIS
Looking at Mr. Leo Lambert's comment, the different between the two terms is mainly in having the printed components or not. What are "Printed components"? Does this refer to legend printing or component mark printing?
Thomas Ip, Newsmart International Limited
The boards in question essentially provide a substrate with interconnect traces and pads. Some have embedded components but are NOT a functional circuit by any stretch of the imagination.
I seem to recall that in the 1970s the board industry agreed that PCB was incorrect and that PWB accurately reflected the functionality. Some old timers, who resist change, clung to the inaccurate PCB term. Apparently, laziness has prevailed for man but PWB is frequently used now.
If you think about it, using lithography, today's SoCs (systems on a chip) are the only true "printed circuits", requiring only power.
Terrence Thompson, WDPI
We have been a manufacturer of printed circuit boards for 37 years now, our UL Card says Printed Wiring Board. But most people say PCB or Circuit Board.
Richard Kincaid