ESD Damage Control - It's Not Just for Semiconductors Anymore
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"Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and "Tech Topics Smorgasbord" are all manifestations of my ranting on various subjects relevant (usually) to the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37
If, as the saying goes, "Misery loves company," then you will appreciate the following. Whilst perusing the December 2017 issue of NASA's Motion Design supplement to their Tech Briefs publication, I ran across the image to the right in an article titled, "Trends in Hydraulic Filtration" (areas of interest are quite diverse here at RF Cafe). After reading the caption stating that the holes were "fire holes," the first thing that came to mind was ESD damage. Sure enough, upon going back and reading more of the story (provided by Argo-Hytos), I found the following:
The semiconductor industry has gone through a long, tedious, and very expensive process of learning about and protecting against the damage caused when electrostatic charges drain through gate regions or, in extreme cases, across insulator boundaries. It is safe to say that the issue has been pretty much resolved through a combination of semiconductor device construction with on-chip protection, packing changes, and establishing proper handling procedures in the factory. The main risk these days is an ESD event occurring at the point of use of the end product in which the IC is contained. Who knew that a field as unassociated with semiconductor electronics as hydraulic filters is would be experiencing the same ESD challenges? As with electronics, the problem only really began to manifest itself once the scale of critical features began shrinking in size. For ICs it was gate thickness; for hydraulics it was filter hole sizes. Note: You, too, can receive a free copy of NASA Tech Briefs in the mail if you qualify (which typically means you just have to have a pulse). BTW, for those of you not around in the 1970s, the "not just for semiconductors anymore" line was borrowed from the Florida orange juice industry's "It isn't just for breakfast anymore" commercials.
Posted December 5, 2017 |
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