White Paper 4Understanding Electrical Overstress - EOS-2

Purpose 
This purpose of this white paper will be introduce a new perspective about EOS to the electronics industry. As failures exhibiting EOS damage are commonly experienced in the industry, and these severe overstress events are a factor in the damage of many products, the intent of the white paper is to clarify what EOS really is and how it can be mitigated once it is properly comprehended. It is very clear that EOS is predominantly a matter of what customers do with devices, and in which applications the semiconductor specifications are exceeded causing destruction of the device. This white paper will describe those phenomena and explain the most 
important facts so that the involved partners in the industry have the opportunity to understand and recognize helpful steps for analysis and avoidance of EOS events. In view of the above, we define EOS in terms of its impact inside applications. We focus on exceedance of specifications but not on how an exact specification was originally created. We focus instead on when and how 
the specifications are exceeded to cause EOS damage. It is intended that this document be disseminated throughout the semiconductor industry for the benefit of those persons whose positions are concerned with the real nature of EOS. It is intended to serve as a foundational reference document for existing and future technologies.