Terminating the ends of passive electronic components entails applying a laser-ablative coating (70) to each of the opposed major surfaces (14 and 16; 36 and 38) of a substrate (10 and 34). A UV laser beam having a spot size and an energy distribution sufficient to remove the laser-ablative coating from multiple selected regions of the major surfaces is directed for incidence on the substrate. Relative motion between the UV laser beam and substrate effects removal of sufficient amounts of laser-ablative coating to expose the multiple selected regions of the opposed major surfaces. The substrate is then broken into multiple rowbars (48 and 50), each of which includes side margins (60 and 62) along which are positioned different spatially aligned pairs of the selected regions of the opposed major surfaces. An electrically conductive material is applied to the side margins to form electrically conductive interconnects (56 and 58) between each spatially aligned pair of the selected regions.