Product category:
Circuit Protection Devices
News Release from: California Micro Devices | Subject: PicoGuard XS
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 29 January 2008
ESD protection device maintains signal
integrity
The PicoGuard XS architecture eliminates the need for external compensation to match line impedance, reducing design complexity and cost.
California Micro Devices has released PicoGuard XS, a ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection architecture in the XtremeESD family It provides outstanding signal integrity and robust ESD protection for high-speed differential signals such as DisplayPort and HDMI
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Sep 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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By integrating inductors with the ESD protection diodes, the PicoGuard XS architecture eliminates the need for external compensation to match line impedance, reducing design complexity and cost.
Two important trends are leading to fundamental changes in system level ESD protection requirements: increased susceptibility of system ICs to ESD strikes as they migrate to more advanced process technologies and increasingly demanding signal integrity requirements as data rates continue to climb.
Traditional ESD protection devices are optimised for either ESD protection or signal integrity, but not both.
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In fact, the traditional approach to improving signal integrity, reducing the capacitance of the ESD protection structures, also tends to reduce ESD performance.
The PicoGuard XS architecture eliminates this tradeoff by improving ESD protection while simultaneously providing excellent signal integrity and minimising design complexity.
Traditionally, system designers must compensate for the capacitance of the ESD protection device by adding external inductance, eliminating capacitance under the signal traces near the ESD device, or both.
These approaches add complexity and cost and are PCB board dependent, limiting the ability to use multiple board vendors.
By integrating the inductance into the ESD device, PicoGuard XS eliminates the need for these measures, providing matched impedance with no external compensation or components required.
"System developers no longer need to make a tradeoff between signal integrity and ESD protection", said Joe Salvador , Director of Marketing for Digital Consumer and Computing Products at California Micro Devices.
"This is particularly important for high-speed interfaces such as HDMI 1.3 and the new DisplayPort interface which requires a minimum of 8kV contact protection on all lines".
The first PicoGuard XS product is the CM1233-08DE, offering eight channels of robust ESD protection.
It provides protection for four pairs of differential channels, offering ESD protection to IEC61000-4-2 Level 4 +/-8kV contact discharge.
System designers can easily meet the 100ohm differential impedance requirements of HDMI and DisplayPort using these devices, with no external compensation required.
The integration of inductors with the ESD diodes provides for improved ESD protection as well as better signal integrity.
Compared with best in class ESD diode arrays, the CM1233-08DE offers a 40% reduction in peak clamping voltage, a 15-40% reduction in peak residual current and a 100ohm differential impedance matching with no external compensation required.
It also offers straight-through routing for improved layout and has a compact 16-pin TDFN package for reduced board space.
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