DAC43608: behavior regarding under harsh condition

Hi Shinichi,

Welcome to E2E and thank you for your query. Your question is very generic. ESD can find any possible path depending on the point it is discharged and the shortest AC impedance to the ground or protective earth. Without understanding how the circuit design and layout are done, and how the board is mounted inside the enclosure, the ESD pah cannot be predicted. Once an ESD discharge happens, sometimes, toggling some pins may bring the device to normal operation. But these are not designed into the device. Hence, they are just workarounds.

A proper ESD design needs to make sure the shortest path for the ESD is not through the device pins. If you are willing, we can help with reviewing your schematics and layout for effective ESD protection. We can take this conversation over mail if needed.

Hope that answers your question.

Regards,
Uttam Sahu
Applications Engineer, Precision DACs

Hi Shinichi,

Power-on-reset will work in getting back the system in many ESD scenarios. As I mentioned earlier, it depends on the level of discharge. Latch-up is of two types: soft latch-up and hard latch-up. hard latch-up means the device damage is irreversible. So, it must be avoided through external means. However, even after providing external protection, you might face some residual discharge into the device, which is not supposed to damage the device but rather make it temporarily non-functional. The non-functionality might go away after some time. But in some cases, the duration is unacceptable. In that condition, power-on reset comes to rescue, at least, for most cases.

However, the POR term is sometimes misused at many places and digital reset functionality should not be considered a proper POR although they are the same functionally. In abnormal usage conditions like ESD discharge, it is appropriate to use a proper POR that is power-cycling.

Hence, for your design, we would recommend a power switch for cycling the power supply to the DAC. You can use the software reset but the probability that it can bring the device out of the ESD condition is very less.

Hope that answers your question.

Regards,

Uttam