Hans Kunz is a distinguished member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments, with 25+ years of experience in the development and application of on-chip ESD protection for analog designs. He is a frequent contributor to ESDA activities, including technical program committees, tutorials, workshops, and presentations for the IEW and the EOS/ESD Symposium.
There is often confusion about the interaction between IC-level component ESD protection and the appropriately required system-level ESD protection strategy.
Robust ESD protection does not ensure that IC designs are protected from unintended EOS effects. This article identifies areas of risk in some ESD design methods.
