<Actually, I find most precautions such as anti-static and so forth to
<be baloney. I must have done every illegal thing in the book, and the
<only things I haven't gotten away with was plugging chips in
Well it's really pay me now or later. While at DEC we (participated) did
and ESD study and we found even TTL was susceptable. It accounted for a
very significant number of boards that shipped good and failed on install
or very shortly afterwards. ESD can damage devices without immediately
failing them. It contributed to many burned in and tested at the facory
only to fail in the field boards and made for a high incidence of failures
in chips associted with interconnects (edge connectors and plugs/sockets).
When a program of ESD grounding was instituted the failures drom 20% over
a year and would continue to drop for several years and habits were
broken.
The problem is difference in charge so try to maintain contact to keep the
static charges equalized/dissipated especially on the
cold dry days were have up north here.
Also handling edge connectors is long term not good. Oils and salts from
the hands are not good even for gold plated connectors.
Allison
Received on Sun Mar 15 1998 - 11:11:41 GMT