The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Product decision · 1972–2022
Phoenix Contact's COMBICON made PCB wiring pluggable — and an industrial standard
In 1972 Phoenix Contact invented the KDS PCB terminal; the COMBICON family has since been installed billions of times worldwide.
Phoenix Contact
The solution
Around 1972, the printed circuit board had nearly replaced free hand-wiring in consumer electronics and industrial control technology — but no connection technology matched it. Phoenix Contact shareholder Klaus Eisert proposed putting a single industrial clamp directly on the board.
The result was the KDS, a small revolution: one green clamp that combined the functions of a terminal — testing, plugging and separating — and marked the beginning of the industrial PCB terminal era. Phoenix Contact counts billions of COMBICON PCB terminals and connectors produced since 1972.
From that origin grew a portfolio of about 100 product families: the first PCB terminals with push-in spring connection, single-row plug connectors with variable pole counts for individual field wiring, and lever clamps with push-in function. Users worldwide find the green clamps in inverters, complex controllers and smart-home equipment.
The company, founded in 1923 and headquartered in Blomberg, built a global market-leader position on this standard; at the 2022 electronica fair it celebrated 50 years of COMBICON, and the 2021 SPT modular series added a fully digital chain from configurator to production.
Why it worked
- The KDS gave the PCB its own clamp combining test, plug and separate functions
- Standardized families scaled to billions of installed units
- Push-in and lever innovations kept field wiring simple and fast
- The green clamp became a recognizable quality standard
What can be applied
When a new substrate changes how things are built, invent the missing connection: the component that standardizes assembly becomes the industry's default.
Aftermath
Fifty years on, COMBICON remains central to Phoenix Contact's portfolio and its vision of an All Electric Society; the green terminal is still a mark of quality, and the SPT modular series (2021) digitalized the path from configurator to manufacturing.
Sources
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