Investigations on the Susceptibility of ICs to Power-Switching Transients

Due to the fast changes of the voltage and current generated by the operation of power-switching circuits that supply inductive loads, wideband transients can be induced at the ports of electronic equipment operating in the same environment. The level of collected transients is responsible for the degradation of system performance as well as its reliability. This paper describes a circuit model by which the transient waveforms at the equipment ports can be analyzed for real applications in the early design stages. A compact injection probe, whose properties derive from simulations performed on the circuit model and on the results of experimental measurements, has been designed and fabricated to characterize IC susceptibility to electrical transients.