Barnacle (slang) in the field in order to correct a design or manufacturing defect. The term appears to have originated from the crustacean barnacle which is an animal that attaches itself to rocks, docks, ships, whales, and other objects where it grows. A barnacle in electronics is something added to the manufactured product. Typically a barnacle on a circuit board is very noticeable, much like the mollusc variety on a rock in the sea. While the term was originally used with electronic hardware, it has also migrated into the software industry where is it is used to describe software that is added
Barnacle (slang) to repair design errors, experiment with design changes or enhancements, or otherwise alter circuit behaviour. Although usually a barnacle-implemented change is incorporated into a new fabrication cycle circuit before production, occasionally there are final-assembly barnacles. In such cases it is determined to be less expensive to add a barnacle to a final, shipping product rather than re-spin the circuit to ship without these interventions left in place. The normal development cycle for electronic hardware contains two main phases. The first phase is the development and prototype phase in which the hardware is first designed (and often simulated using a computer