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Has anyone actually killed an IC with static electricity before?

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Inducktion

Fri Apr 22 2011, 02:38AM

Registered Member #3637 Joined: Fri Jan 21 2011, 11:07PM
Location: Buffalo, NY
Posts: 1068

Have you ever really ...killed anything with static electricity on accident? I've been sort of a skeptic of ESD murders since I've learned about them.

Chip Fixes

Fri Apr 22 2011, 02:41AM

Registered Member #3781 Joined: Sat Mar 26 2011, 02:25AM
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Posts: 701

I've deemed it very hard to do... I've taken apart my computer and put it back together many times on carpeted floors and everything works as it should.

Turkey9

Fri Apr 22 2011, 02:44AM

Registered Member #1451 Joined: Wed Apr 23 2008, 03:48AM
Location: Boulder, Co
Posts: 661

I've killed many surface mount IC with ESD. It's really only a problem with those as far as I can tell. DIP are usually a lot more robust. Also, when ICs are in the circuit there are a lot of paths to ground connected to the pins so it's fairly well protected.

Patrick

Fri Apr 22 2011, 04:34AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

In my humble analysis, in the 70's, 80's to early 90's dies, silicon, were much more vulnerable. from the early 90's to present, there are many, Id say most manufactuers have pin defense circuits, that clamp up to Vcc, and also clamp down to Gnd, thus the static hazard is profoundly reduced. I believe STmicroelectrons even mentions these circuits in the datasheets of there common IC's. Though i should say that these companies dont want the user depending on these protection circuits, they always want you to use the best practices standards for handling.

Conundrum

Fri Apr 22 2011, 05:10AM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

I am pretty sure I once fried a BRIR PS3 diode this way, was testing it on low current with a resistor (well below Ith) and went to do something else.
Reconnected it and no blue output at all.

-A

Patrick

Fri Apr 22 2011, 06:50AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

yes there can also be special components that cant have the extra protection of the ESD clamping circuits, like special MMIC's and 10+gHz transistors and what not. so special circuits sometimes are way more vulnerable.

Steve Conner

Fri Apr 22 2011, 07:32AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

I work in electronic design, and I was recently involved in a product that had to be EMC tested, CE marked and so on. That included ESD testing: they zap your widget with a gun that produces simulated ESDs, and to pass the test it mustn't malfunction or be damaged.

Our product could take it anywhere except the antenna: after a couple of hits the RF front end was destroyed. It was hard to do anything about that, for the reasons Patrick points out: the antenna port had to work up to 1GHz. We eventually found a transzorb type device with less than 1pF capacitance, designed for protecting cable TV boxes, which allowed the antenna to take 10 shots at 14kV without immediate damage. But the unit subjected to this was degraded, and its front end failed later in the field. 14kV was way above the test requirement, though, so we passed.

From a hobby/lab perspective, I have crashed digital circuits on the bench with ESD, but never actually blown anything. We have anti-static bench mats, and I wear a grounding strap when working on anything delicate.

Budget ESD tip: Wear cotton only.

Sulaiman

Fri Apr 22 2011, 07:51AM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140

In the 70's I remember we had problems with cmos ics for production due to handling problems at goods inwards - a diligent storekeeper, who was not briefed, visually inspected each ic received.
Where I work we repair industrial electronics, each repaired item gets a 1 year warranty,
if the item comes back under warranty it goes to the original repairer to rectify, so we don't want stuff coming back - yet we rarely wear the supplied esd wristbands
- so I would say esd can be a problem
- potentially critical to a manufacturer if an entire product line fails
- but not so important for one-off/hobby projects (unless reliability/safety critical)

Shrad

Fri Apr 22 2011, 08:17AM

Registered Member #3215 Joined: Sun Sept 19 2010, 08:42PM
Location:
Posts: 780

laser diodes are very esd-sensible

as it has been said, cotton is the thing to wear, carpet is the thing to avoid

there is also a nice way for thos living in dry areas, always assure humidity level is higher than 20% in your shop... less friction, more conduction, less statics

Patrick

Fri Apr 22 2011, 08:46PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Steve McConner wrote ...

...Our product could take it anywhere except the antenna: after a couple of hits the RF front end was destroyed. It was hard to do anything about that, for the reasons Patrick points out: the antenna port had to work up to 1GHz. We eventually found a transzorb type device with less than 1pF capacitance, designed for protecting cable TV boxes...

Ooooo the stories I could tell you all my friends.

As a High School student I was allowed to do the static gun thingy on the USB/centronics/parallel ports on Xerox 36" Ink-jets, and the 54" electrostatic color plotters. It was so fun to see the spark jump right to a metal pin I knew ran to a parallel buffer IC . But none of there devices seemed to fail, even long term test articles.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II has a radio detection and Proximity thingy, for detecting radar directed Anti aircraft guns, and air/surface radar seeking missles. This first generation (early 80's) of this device functions from 2GHz to 40GHz, (if I remember right?) it has passive radio antannas only and they had a similar problem with air and particle static at take off and landing, with the static killing the RF stuff. From what I was told by a retired engineer that was a real problem but they solved it. The later generation devices were way more sophisticated but used similar protection to his idea.

Obviously, the source of static is important too. Fingers and clothing would generate a different voltage profile then high velocity sand blasting, or air flow, or whatever.

As Sulaiman has said, I too have found CMOS to be consistently vulnerable.

Ive never been able to get the humidity below 40%, does reaching 20% humidity require one of those special air handling devices?

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