Arcs and Sparks – My ESD Journey by Kenneth Wyatt

Kenneth Wyatt

Principal Engineer
Wyatt Technical Services, LLC

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This presentation will be a look at my personal history of creating ESD starting in high school and continuing through my career in the EMC field. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) has started to become very common product failure, due to the lower noise margins for digital circuits. While the test is easy to set up in-house, it can become one of the most challenging EMC issues for manufacturers to overcome. ESD failures are difficult to mitigate because determining the path of ESD current and the affected circuitry is hard to determine. This presentation will also describe the physics of ESD and show a simple method for tracing the path of ESD current and troubleshooting and mitigating this issue right on the lab bench. Some interesting case studies will also be described.

What you’ll learn:

• Why ESD failures are becoming more common in modern electronics
• The physics of ESD and its impact on PCB performance
• A simple method to trace ESD current paths on the lab bench
• Practical troubleshooting and mitigation techniques for ESD failures
• Real-world case studies and best practices from decades of EMC experience

About Kenneth Wyatt

Principal Consultant of Wyatt Technical Services LLC

Kenneth Wyatt is principal consultant of Wyatt Technical Services LLC and served three years as the senior technical editor for Interference Technology magazine from 2016 through 2018. He has worked in the field of EMC engineering for over 30 years with a specialty in EMI troubleshooting and pre-compliance testing.

He is a co-author of the popular EMC Pocket Guide (now in a 2nd edition) and RFI Radio Frequency Interference Pocket Guide. He also co-authored the book with Patrick André, EMI Troubleshooting Cookbook for Product Designers, with forward by Henry Ott. He recently completed and released a three-volume “EMC Troubleshooting Trilogy”, which is now available through Amazon. See his web for ordering info.

He is widely published and authors a column, EMC Bench Notes, for In Compliance Magazine, has blogged for EDN.com for many years, writes regularly for EEWorld and continues to write for Interference Technology Magazine. Ken is a senior life member of the IEEE and a longtime member of the EMC Society. To contact Ken, or for more information on technical articles, training schedules and links, check out his web site: www.BenchtopEMC.com.