From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com>
From: "Tom
Jennings" <tomj at wps.com>
CMOS isn't *THAT* sensitive; easy, benign, reasonable precautions
are more than adequate. Ben, the days of early MOS/CMOS
hypersensitivity to static are long gone. Even 1970's 4000 series
had input-protection diodes.
The 4051,4052 and 4053 were very static sensitive. But it
is try that most were relatively insensitive. Still, if you
are hitting a part with a spark large enough to make
a sound, you are most likely doing some damage, even if
it doesn't show right away.
Dwight
From dvcorbin>
Duiring the '70s and '80s I worked at a company that made
many military and space grade components. A percentage
were de-lidded at the end of each lot and sent to a SEM
(Scanning Electron Microscope) to look for static damage,
that had NOT effected functionallity. If any (above a very
small threshold) was found, the ENTIRE lot was scrapped
[although they really became samples, lab grade, etc...]
It was AMAZING, the various craters and cracks that were
caused by static that you could not see, feel, or hear....
Wish I still had some of the prints....
The damage without imediate failure of components by static is known as
"Latent Failure", and is a very real problem. These failures can show up as
apparently random device failures for many years after the damage was done.
As an example, one of the systems I look after is a remote control system
for radio transmitters and receivers, and it uses CMOS ic's in FSK modems to
send and receive control signals to the remote equipment. It was installed
in around 1982, and soon gained a terrible reputation for reliability - if
you went a day without a fault, you were doing well! When I joined the
section in 1991, as the new boy, I was given this to look after :-( I, along
with another new, young engineer implemented anti static precautions around
the kit (they hadn't seen much CMOS before this, and where of the opinion
that if it didn't fail imediatly, why was everyone making such a fuss...).
After a couple of months, the failure rate dropped dramatically. The kit is
still working (approaching its 25th year), and now it is rare to touch it
from one anual maintenance to the next!
Interestingly, the previous generation of radio remote control equipment
(built around 1967, and still going strong!), used a qauntity of 74 series
TTL, and despite no ESD precautions, has hardly had any of it's logic
devices changed (wish I could say the same about the germanium transistors
in the alarm shift register - a 24 bit serial in parallel out unit built
with discrete components, and runing at around 4bits / second - you need a
storage scope to fault find).
I take ESD very seriously on all logic systems, especially classic ones - I
would hate to accidentally "zap" that irreplaceable chip...
Jim.