Three voltages are printed next to each other on a protection datasheet, they are all measured in volts, and only one of them tells you whether your circuit survives. Reading them in the wrong order is the single most common reason a correctly specified part fails to protect anything. Last updated: October 11, 2026 Three … Read more
A direct lightning strike is rare and usually destroys things whatever you do. The far more common case is a surge induced on the wiring by a nearby strike, and that one arrives in stages — which is exactly what makes it defensible. Protection is not a single device; it is a sequence of places … Read more
The smallest part on a phone circuit board is often a protection diode, a few tenths of a millimetre across, and it exists because the connector next to it is a doorway. Anything a user touches is a place where a static discharge can enter, and the protection part decides whether that discharge ends as … Read more
Both parts are diodes operated in reverse breakdown, both are drawn with the same symbol, and both are described in datasheets using the same three or four parameter names. The difference is what you are asking them to do all day: regulate a voltage continuously, or absorb a rare event and get out of the … Read more
A TVS diode sits on a board doing nothing for years, and then has to absorb an event that lasts a few millionths of a second. Getting it right is a matter of matching two numbers to the threat, and getting it wrong is usually invisible until a batch of products comes back. This article … Read more
Last updated: October 16, 2026 The short definition is easy to find and does not help much on its own: a TVS diode is a component that conducts when the voltage across it becomes too high. The useful knowledge is knowing where “too high” sits relative to your circuit, and recognising the situations where a … Read more
You feel a spark when it reaches a few thousand volts, but a semiconductor can be destroyed by a discharge you never notice — and often is. The interesting part of static damage is not the spark; it is the fact that a device can pass a functional test after the event and fail in … Read more
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