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Did you know that you can destroy an IC by merely
touching it? If you find this fact strange and unbelievable, you probably
have not heard of ESD. Perhaps, you already destroyed dozens of expensive
ICs without realizing it, unfairly blaming the IC manufacturer and the
vendor for the bad part.
ElectroStatic
Discharge
ESD
Terror in
Silicon Land
I heard lot of engineers saying the Electrostatic
Discharge ESD threat in the Phillippines does not exist, thanks to
our hot and humid climate. Hearing it too often, I too, for a while, fell
for this nonsense. It
turned out to be one of the most costly blunders in my career. Being that gullible
gave me countless wasted hours debugging and redesigning prototypes that
inexplicably fails during testing. I chased this problem through the
manufacturing phase, where we can’t seem to get yields better than 85% from
any production line. Lots of bad ICs go to the thrash. I kept looking for
explanation for these defects, the absence of which fostered me some
suspicion to the IC manufacturer. It took me years (and millions of my
employer money) before I became wiser to realize that all this woes were caused in
large part by ESD. After implementing a modest ESD control program in our
factory, IC defects practically disappeared.
Today, I can see the same misguided wisdom plaguing the
life of most electronic techies, not only of students and experimenters, but
also of experienced engineers who are supposed to know better. Proven
circuit designs refuses to work, component busted as fast as it is replaced,
circuit board doing wicked and weird things, etc, all of these may have been
caused by an essentially simple and easy to avoid phenomenon, ESD. This
article aims to increase your awareness about the problem, and introduce to
you simple but effective solutions to
get rid of
the ESD problem.
This article contains 5
pages. Page <1> <2> <3>
<4> <5>
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03/24/2007
Last
Update
Rev A Initial
Release Written By:
Henry L. Chua
comments?
hlc@e-gizmo.com
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