IEEE Standards Association

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) is a leading developer of global industry standards in a broad-range of industries, including:

* Power and Energy
* Biomedical and Healthcare
* Information Technology
* Telecommunications
* Transportation
* Nanotechnology
* Information Assurance

IEEE-SA has developed standards for over a century, through a program that offers balance, openness, due process and consensus. Technical experts from all over the world participate in the development of IEEE standards. [ The Standards & the IEEE Standards Development Process section is based on information originally obtained from the IEEE and IEEE-SA websites, and the Appendix of the article "The Role of Market-Based and Committee-Based Standards," by Sanjiv Patel, Babson College 2002. ]

Each year, the IEEE-SA conducts over 200 standards ballots, a process by which proposed standards are voted upon for technical reliability and soundness.

tandards and the IEEE Standards Development Process

IEEE is one of the leading standards-making organizations in the world. IEEE performs its standards making and maintaining functions through the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA). IEEE standards affect a wide range of industries including: power and energy, biomedical and healthcare, Information Technology (IT), telecommunications, transportation, nanotechnology, information assurance, and many more. In 2005, IEEE had close to 900 active standards, with 500 standards under development. One of the more notable IEEE standards is the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN group of standards which includes the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard and the IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networking standard.

The IEEE standards development process can be broken down into seven basic steps, as follows:

#Securing Sponsorship: An IEEE-approved organization must sponsor a standard. A sponsoring organization is in charge of coordinating and supervising the standard development from inception to completion. The professional societies within IEEE serve as the natural sponsor for many standards.
#Requesting Project Authorization: To gain authorization for the standard a Project Authorization Request (PAR) is submitted to the IEEE-SA Standards Board. The New Standards Committee (NesCom) of the IEEE-SA Standards Board reviews the PAR and makes a recommendation to the Standards Board about whether to approve the PAR.
#Assembling a Working Group: After the PAR is approved, a "working group" of individuals affected by, or interested in, the standard is organized to develop the standard. IEEE-SA rules ensure that all Working Group meetings are open and that anyone has the right to attend and contribute to the meetings.
#Drafting the Standard: The Working Group prepares a draft of the proposed standard. Generally, the draft follows the IEEE Standards Style Manual that sets “guidelines” for the clauses and format of the standards document.
#Balloting: Once a draft of the standard is finalized in the Working Group, the draft is submitted for Balloting approval. The IEEE Standards Department sends an invitation-to-ballot to any individual who has expressed an interest in the subject matter of the standard. Anyone who responds positively to the invitation-to-ballot becomes a member of the balloting group, as long as the individual is an IEEE member or has paid a balloting fee. The IEEE requires that a proposed draft of the standard receive a response rate of 75% (i.e., at least 75% of potential ballots are returned) and that, of the responding ballots, at least 75% approve the proposed draft of the standard. If the standard is not approved, the process returns to the drafting of the standard step in order to modify the standard document to gain approval of the balloting group.
#Review Committee: After getting 75% approval, the draft standard, along with the balloting comments, are submitted to the IEEE-SA Standards Board Review Committee (RevCom). The RevCom reviews the proposed draft of the standard against the IEEE-SA Standards Board Bylaws and the stipulations set forth in the IEEE-SA Standards Board Operations Manual. The RevCom then makes a recommendation about whether to approve the submitted draft of the standard document.
#Final Vote: Each member of the IEEE-SA Standards Board places a final vote on the submitted standard document. In some cases external members are invited to vote. It takes a majority vote of the Standards Board to gain final approval of the standard. In general, if the RevCom recommends approval, the Standards Board will vote to approve the standard.

Notable IEEE Standards committees and formats

* IEEE 488 — Standard Digital Interface for Programmable Instrumentation, IEEE-488-1978 (now 488.1).
* IEEE 610 — Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology.
* IEEE 754 — floating point arithmetic specifications.
* IEEE 802 — LAN/MAN
** IEEE 802.1 — Standards for LAN/MAN bridging and management and remote media access control (MAC) bridging.
** IEEE 802.2 — Standards for Logical Link Control (LLC) standards for connectivity.
** IEEE 802.3 — Ethernet Standards for Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD).
** IEEE 802.4 — Standards for token passing bus access.
** IEEE 802.5 — Standards for token ring access and for communications between LANs and MANs
** IEEE 802.6 — Standards for information exchange between systems.
** IEEE 802.7 — Standards for broadband LAN cabling.
** IEEE 802.8 — Fiber optic connection.
** IEEE 802.9 — Standards for integrated services, like voice and data.
** IEEE 802.10 — Standards for LAN/MAN security implementations.
** IEEE 802.11 — Wireless Networking – "WiFi".
** IEEE 802.12 — Standards for demand priority access method.
** IEEE 802.14 — Standards for cable television broadband communications.
** IEEE 802.15.1 — Bluetooth
** IEEE 802.15.4 — Wireless Sensor/Control Networks – "ZigBee"
** IEEE 802.16 — Wireless Networking – "WiMAX"
* IEEE 829 — Software Test Documentation
* IEEE 830 — Software Requirements Specifications.
* IEEE 896 — Futurebus
* IEEE 1003 — POSIX – "Unix" compatibility programming standard
* IEEE 1044 — Standard Classification for Software Anomalies
* IEEE 1059 — Software Verification And Validation Plan
* IEEE 1073 — Point of Care Medical Device Communication Standards
* IEEE 1074 — Software Development Life Cycle
* IEEE 1076 — VHDL – VHSIC Hardware Description Language
* IEEE 1149.1 — JTAG
* IEEE 1149.6 — AC-JTAG
* IEEE 1180 — Discrete cosine transform accuracy
* IEEE 1275 — Open Firmware
* IEEE 1284 — Parallel port
* IEEE P1363 — Public key cryptography
* IEEE 1394 — Serial Bus — "FireWire", "i.Link"
* IEEE P1901 — Broadband over Power Line Networks
* IEEE 1541 — Prefixes for Binary Multiples
* IEEE 1584 — Guide for Performing Arc Flash Hazard Calculations
* IEEE 1588 — Precision Time Protocol
* IEEE P1619 - Security in Storage Working Group (SISWG)
* IEEE 1667 — Standard Protocol for Authentication in Host Attachments of Transient Storage Devices
* IEEE 12207 — Information Technology
* IEEE Switchgear Committee C37 series of standards for Low and High voltage equipment

References

External links

*http://standards.ieee.org/