Phillip Havens Principal Engineer at Littelfuse and Chad Marak, Director of Technical Marketing and TVS Diode Array Products in the Semiconductor Business Unit of Littelfuse, Inc. discuss how smartphones, Tablets and other portable devices can be protected from ESD
Consumers are the single biggest risk to electronic devices such as Smartphones and Tablets that play a vital role in their lives. Not only because they might drop them on the floor, but especially because human touch to any device containing sensitive electronic semiconductors can be the source of an ESD (Electro Static Discharge) event. Hence, only utilising proper circuit protection in the design process can ensure the longevity of electronic devices, whether used at home, at work, or in the car.
Every one of us has experienced the shocking jolt when touching the metal door of a car during a particularly dry summer day, for instance. While such a jolt may be a nuisance event to a human, it can mean a real threat to sensitive electronic equipment. As an example, have you ever picked up your Smartphone or Tablet PC, only to find that some of the buttons or data ports no longer work properly? These and other real-life examples could be the direct result of that same “jolt” being injected into the application, rather than the metal body of your car.
ESD events may not cause catastrophic issues such as an exploding cell phone but one would notice when it does not respond to any keypad or button inputs if it has previously suffered from an unprotected ESD occurrence. Similarly, an interface port (e.g. USB, Ethernet) may no longer function properly when it is connected to other devices due to ESD damage.
ESD events can occur anytime
ESD events can be traced to a phenomenon known as triboelectric charging. Triboelectric charging occurs when two materials make contact and then are quickly separated. Electrons are transferred between the two materials resulting in one being positively charged and the other negatively charged. This resulting ESD build-up depends on several factors such as area of contact, the speed of separation, relative humidity, chemistry of the materials, etc. This process occurs thousands of times per day and mostly goes unnoticed unless the discharge is sufficiently severe enough to cause some mild, brief discomfort (e.g. walking across carpet and grabbing the door handle). The charges generated can range from hundreds of volts to tens of thousands of volts.
ESD exposure is a real problem in today’s sophisticated consumer equipment, due to ever shrinking board level chipset size and thus the resulting silicon geometry via wafer processing. ESD structures have become too large and costly to be included in the silicon IC package; therefore, the IC suppliers have removed or greatly reduced the internal ESD protection. However, once these ICs are installed in consumer products, they may be subjected to ESD events that are not as well controlled as they are in manufacturing environments.
Traditional ESD test models: not harsh enough?
Moreover, IC manufacturers have historically used an ESD test model (MIL-STD-883, Method 3015: Human Body Model) that relates specifically to a manufacturing environment while equipment manufacturers concerned with ESD events in the field have used a harsher model as defined by the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), namely the IEC 61000-4-2 standard. As of this writing, the majority of IC suppliers test their products at 500V with the Human Body Model (HBM) while end equipment manufacturers will test at 8000V (and beyond) using the IEC61000-4-2 standard.
As mentioned previously, most IC suppliers only test to 500V via the Human Body Model and compared to an 8kV ESD transient in the field, the chipset will see a near 100 fold increase in current certainly sealing its fate unless ESD protection is added to the design.
Over the last several years, application testing requirements have become more and more severe with an ESD event of 8kV being the lowest level typically used now. Testing levels are trending towards 20kV and even 30kV while IC suppliers have continued to remove protection to save silicon area for more functionality.
Proper ESD protection is crucial for any consumer electronic device
Selecting the correct ESD protection device (typically referred to as a TVS Diode Array) is vital for ensuring the end application will survive and continue to function as originally designed. The dynamic resistance is a very important ESD protector parameter, if not the most important, to consider when selecting a protection component. Any protection solution has an intrinsic resistance value associated with its clamping characteristic. An ideal solution minimises the intrinsic resistance so that a protection solution has the lowest impedance path to ground during a surge event.
During an ESD event the clamping device will turn on, or go from its nominal state of high impedance to one of low impedance. If its series resistance is high, a high voltage (V = I*R) develops across the component, thus providing less effective protection of the IC its protection. If this series resistance is low, the voltage developed across the protection component is lowered and thus the exposure level to the IC is lowered. This lower dynamic resistance (resistance value of the protection component during clamping mode) allows more of the surge current to be routed away from the IC and into ground.
Littelfuse TVS Diode Arrays are designed to attain the lowest dynamic resistance value thus minimising the overall voltage drop across the protection component and maximising the current through it instead of through the protected IC.
In general, silicon protection devices will provide the best ESD protection due to their inherently lower dynamic resistance compared to competing technologies such as polymers, ceramics, etc. The typical dynamic resistance of silicon components will range from 0.2-3.0? depending on the supplier while ceramic type solutions (of equal capacitance) offer dynamic resistances in the range of 2? to 5? on average.
International standards: these guidelines should be followed
Consumer electronics such as LCD TVs, smartphones, tablets, eReaders, set top boxes, gaming consoles, digital cameras, audio players, etc are seemingly unlimited and constantly evolving. Nonetheless, the ports, or interconnects, on these devices are quite common and require ESD protection since they are the interface to the outside world. Nearly, all consumer products share some of the following functions:
1) Ac input/output
2) Dc input/output
3) Battery pack
4) Keypads/Pushbuttons
5) Video signals (HDMI, S-video, Composite video, LCD module)
6) Audio output
7) Low speed data interface (USB1.1, IEEE 1394, RS 232C, RS 485)
8) High speed data interface (USB2.0, USB3.0, 10 BaseT, 100BaseT, 1000BaseT)
9) CATV/RF input/output
Some of these functions will require compliance to country safety standards thus needing overcurrent and overvoltage protection. Other functions may need protection from environmental factors such as ESD, but also nearby lightning surges, or EFT (electrically fast transients) caused by nearby high inductive load equipment cycling on and off (e.g. a vacuum cleaner).
Products that are directly connected to the AC mains (120 to 250VACrms) may be exposed to severe surge transients (lightning, load switching, etc.) and short circuit/overload conditions. This requires a combination of overcurrent (fuses or PTCs) and overvoltage (MOVs, TVSs, or TVS diode arrays) components due to the severe exposure. Standards that may specifically require this protection are:
1) IE 61000-4-4 (EFT user level environment)
2) IEC 61000-4-5 (lightning induced surges)
3) IEC/EN 60950-1 (safety standard)
Portable consumer products that contain an ac or dc adapter may have specific ESD and low-level lightning exposure threats that must be accounted for. Standards that may specifically require this protection include:
1) IEC 61000-4-2 (ESD user level environment)
2) IEC 61000-4-5 (lightning induced surges)
Keypads or other manual type interface buttons may be an entry point for the destructive energy of ESD. Audio lines may have similar type ESD exposure due to the speaker wire connections and exposure to manual handling. The connectors for S-video, Composite video, HDMI, are also susceptible to ESD exposure due to the manual handling of such equipment parts. Battery pack applications will endure similar ESD exposure as well as potential “overcurrent run-away” conditions that must be protected against (IEC 61960 & IEC 62133 specifically apply). Low speed and high speed data lines have an ESD exposure and depending on their actual placement may also be exposed to lightning induced surge events. National Standards that would typically apply for these types of applications include:
1) IEC 61000-4-2 (ESD user level environment)
2) IEC 61000-4-5 (lightning induced surges)
As IC designers try to pack more functionality into smaller chipsets, ESD survivability has decreased significantly. Today, consumer products face an ever increasing risk of being damaged due to overvoltage transients such as ESD, which makes it necessary to use external protection components.
To ensure the life expectancy of consumer electronics, TVS Diode Arrays are recommended for protection as they have plenty of benefits: TVS Diode Arrays can not only meet the small footprint requirements, but also provide very low clamping voltages, compared to competing technologies, capable of safe guarding state of the art ICs. Exposure to EFTs, nearby lightning strikes and potential power fault events also require specific attention to overcurrent and overvoltage protection solutions. By employing the correct overcurrent (fuse or PTC) and overvoltage protection components, manufacturers can ensure their products remain an integral part of their consumer’s life.
When it comes to testing, international standards set high bars for safety and are therefore more reliable than traditional test models. Hence, the correct choice of protection components also insures the applications comply with the appropriate regulations for both safety and functional reasons.
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