Overvoltage Protection in High Speed Communication Ports

Amelia's Halloween Fish Fry had us all running out and gleefully building our own singing Tesla coils, and even though shuffling quietly across the carpet and sending a bright 10,000-volt arc from your fingertip to a napping family member can be a barrel of laughs, there are times where we most definitely do not find electrostatic discharge so amusing. The first of those, of course, is when we ARE the sleeping family member. Sheesh, what an insensitive prank!

But, a second scenario where we do not welcome the effect of high-voltage static discharge events is when we're designing high-speed communications circuits. Getting your Ethernet port zapped with a 10kV ESD is far from fun - especially for the Ethernet port. But, how do we help our circuits protect themselves? Ian Doyle of ProTek devices has some very helpful suggestions.

--Kevin Morris, Editor-in-Chief

Transmission data rates continue to grow and grow to meet consumer demands for multimedia rich content, such as streaming video. In turn, whether in the home or at the backend, Ethernet connectivity also continues its widespread use. As a result, and more than ever, electrostatic discharge (ESD) transient threats pose challenges to system designers to incorporate overvoltage protection that doesn’t impact performance." />