Predicting the breakdown behavior of microcontrollers under EMP/UWB impact using a statistical analysis

Reproducible prediction of damaging effects is one of the main problems in intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI). In this paper, the susceptibility of different types of single microcontrollers to unipolar fast rise time pulses [electromagnetic pulse (EMP), ultrawide band (UWB)] is determined. Therefore, pulses with rise times as fast as 100 ps and electric field amplitudes of up to 100 kV/m are applied to the devices. The results are generalized with a novel statistical procedure. Following discussion and rationale, the Weibull distribution is selected to describe the interference behavior. The statistical analysis provides a new test procedure for a confident determination of the interference behavior parameters.