In today's era where smart bracelets, smartwatches, and smart glasses are constantly being innovated, the popularity of electrostatic suppressors with low capacitance and small packaging sizes can be described as increasing day by day. Wearable devices come in a wide range of forms, such as sports bracelets, smartwatches, helmets, smart wear, and more, providing a variety of user experiences. Undoubtedly, more and more users are paying attention to wearable devices, and the entire market has great potential. This has also prompted digital manufacturers to view them as new profit points, and various new devices are popping up, constantly bombarding users' wallets. It is foreseeable that a variety of products and trials will continue to be launched in the next 3 to 5 years, forming a market with the following characteristics:
The market is rapidly innovating, and consumer demand is also rapidly changing at the same speed;
The emergence and development of new types of products may sometimes eventually disappear;
Numerous competing products have emerged, but a standard feature set has not been formed;
Even if there are, there are only a few standardized architectures or interface standards.
While wearable devices have received widespread attention, their product quality has also been monitored by the entire market. The lack of standard architecture, feature sets, and specialized chips for wearable devices has brought many unprecedented challenges to the design of mobile consumer electronics, which already faces tight cost, power consumption, and size constraints. In addition to battery power consumption and volume, the ability to resist noise, interference, water, fall, and static damage to the human body has also become a concern for design developers. By improving the reliability related specifications such as anti-static ability of the system, it will be possible to avoid premature damage to wearable devices, improve product quality evaluation, and also reduce after-sales repair costs.
Consumers wear directly through contact with their skin, and the greatest risk of exposure is the static electricity generated by the user. Static electricity can be said to be ubiquitous, and even the simplest human contact can generate brief electrostatic discharge (ESD). If there is no appropriate protection, no sensor circuit, battery, charging interface, button, or data input/output that can provide a path for ESD to enter wearable devices, it can cause irreversible damage to electronic products.
Choose an appropriate electrostatic suppressor
1. Lower capacitance to avoid interference with high-speed data transmission
ESD protection devices must provide circuit protection that does not interfere with daily functions. For example, on RF interfaces (such as Bluetooth or WLAN) or wired ports like USB 2.0, ESD protectors cannot cause signal distortion or loss of data signal strength. To ensure signal integrity, the capacitance of the ESD protector must be minimized without weakening the protection level.
2. Using a lower clamping voltage to protect the most sensitive circuit
If an ESD discharge event occurs, the main task of the ESD protector is to transfer and dissipate the ESD transient voltage as much as possible. This feature is improved by reducing state resistance or dynamic resistance during electrostatic pulses, and carrying more impulse current through ESD protectors than the protected circuit. By doing so, it reduces the static discharge pressure on integrated circuits and ensures their survival.
3. Smaller size to accommodate limited board space in wearable devices
No matter how high-performance the protective device operates, it is useless if it cannot adapt to specific application environments. Wearable devices become thinner and smaller, and circuit boards have the smallest available space to accommodate ESD protection schemes. The protection scheme for separated devices is the best way to address this potential design challenge, as they provide design engineers with the flexibility of special circuit board layouts.
With decades of experience in anti-static protection components such as ESD static suppressors, Shuokai Electronics has developed ESD static discharge diodes with lower capacitance values and smaller packaging, which basically meet the electrostatic protection needs of wearable devices and ensure the effectiveness of wearable device electrostatic protection solutions.