Ceramic transient voltage suppressors,

CTVS

Protection standards for electromagnetic

compatibility (EMC)

Date: July 2014

© EPCOS AG 2014. Reproduction, publication and dissemination of this publication, enclosures hereto and the
information contained therein without EPCOS' prior express consent is prohibited.
Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1 CE conformity

A wide range of legislation and of harmonized standards have come into force and been pub-
lished in the field of EMC in recent years. In the European Union EMC Directive 89/336/EEC of
the Council of the European Communities and its successor, the 2004/108/EC, do apply. All elec-
tronic equipment must comply with the protective aims of the EMC Directive. Conformity with the
respective standards must be guaranteed by the manufacturer or importer in the form of a decla-
ration of conformity. A dedicated CE mark of conformity must be applied to all equipment.
As a matter of principle, all electrical or electronic equipment, installations and systems must meet
the protection requirements of the EMC Directive and/or national EMC legislation. A declaration of
conformity by the manufacturer or importer and a CE mark are required for most equipment. Ex-
ceptions to this rule and special rulings are described in detail in EMC legislation.
There are binding regulations both for maximum interference emission and for immunity to inter-
ference. In this respect, in addition to having an optimum price/performance ratio, varistors have
proved themselves to be a reliable solution for most requirements concerning immunity to interfer-
ence and transient overvoltages. The IEC 61000 or EN 61000 series of standards serve as the
central EMC standards into which all EMC regulations have been integrated.
The European standards are subdivided into generic, basic, and product family standards. This
makes it easier to find the rules that apply to the respective equipment. Generic standards define
the EMC environment in which a device is to operate according to its intended use and always
apply to all equipment for which there is no specific product family standard or dedicated product
standard. Basic standards contain information on interference phenomena and general measuring
methods.

1.1 Generic standards on electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)

Harmonized European standards have been drawn up in relation to the EMC Directive of the EEC
and national EMC laws. These specify measurement techniques and limit values or severity lev-
els, both for interference emission and for the interference susceptibility (or rather, immunity to in-
terference) of electronic devices, equipment and systems.
Adherence to the standards for EMC is especially important. These are:

Immunity to interference EN 61000-6-1 and IEC 61000-6-1 and

EN 61000-6-2 IEC 61000-6-2
Interference emission EN 61000-6-3 and IEC 61000-6-3 and
EN 61000-6-4 IEC 61000-6-4

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1.2 Basic standards: IEC standards for measurement of immunity to interference

One important IEC standard relating to EMC is IEC 61000-4, which in turn comprises a number of
EMC-specific norms. Of these the following refer to measurement of immunity to interference and
transient overvoltages and thus are especially applicable to CTVS:

1. IEC 61000-4-1 - Introduction

2. IEC 61000-4-2 - ESD (electrostatic discharge)
3. IEC 61000-4-3 - Field-related electromagnetic interference
4. IEC 61000-4-4 - Burst (electrical fast transients)
5. IEC 61000-4-5 - Surges (high-energy transients)
6. IEC 61000-4-6 - Conducted disturbance

Each part of this standard focuses on measurement of different classes for electromagnetic dis-
turbance:

Electrostatic discharge (ESD)

Standard Test characteristics Phenomena
IEC 61000-4-2 8 kV contact discharge (level 4) Electrostatic discharge
15 kV air discharge (level 4)

Field-related electromagnetic interference

Standard Test characteristics Phenomena
IEC 61000-4-3 1 V/m, 3 V/m, 10 V/m, 30 V/m High-frequency interference
or higher fields
80 MHz to 6 GHz

Conducted interference
Standard Test characteristics Phenomena
IEC 61000-4-4 5/50 ns pulse, up to 4 kV Electrical fast transient/ burst
5 kHz burst for a duration of 15 Cause: switching processes
ms, 100 kHz burst for a
duration of 0.75 ms
IEC 61000-4-5 1.2/50 µs (open-circuit voltage) Surge (high-energy transients)
8/20 µs (short-circuit current) Cause: lightning strikes,
switching processes near
power mains
IEC 61000-4-6 1 V, 3 V, 10 V Conducted disturbance
150 kHz to 230 MHz Cause: induced by
radio-frequency fields

The standards relevant for transient overvoltage protection with varistors are explained in detail in
the next sections.

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1.2.1 Electrostatic discharge (ESD) to IEC 61000-4-2

The standard IEC 61000-4-2 describes the test procedures and specifies severity levels. Figure 1
shows the discharge circuit (high-voltage source, charge resistor Rc, effective capacitor C, dis-
charge resistor Rd), figure 2 the waveform of the discharge current with an extremely short rise
time of 0.8 ns and amplitudes of up to 30 to 40 A.
The secondary effects caused by this edge steepness are high electrical and magnetic field
strengths.
In the ESD test, at least 10 test pulses are applied, which have the polarity to which the device
under test is most sensitive.

Figure 1
ESD discharge circuit to IEC 61000-4-2 (typical values: C = 150 pF, Rd = 330 Ω)

Figure 2
ESD discharge current to IEC 61000-4-2

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

Response time of CTVS

Taking into account the very short rise times of ESD pulses in the sub-nanosecond regime (see
figure 2), in order to provide efficient ESD protection the response time of CTVS, i.e. the elapsed
time from the beginning of the ESD pulse impact until the CTVS device clamps the overvoltage
down to uncritical values needs to be rather low. Due to the very low parasitic inductances of the
device with typical values from 3 nH for large case sizes (e.g. 2220) down to < 1 nH for small
case sizes (e.g. 0201), multilayer CTVS achieve response times of < 0.5 ns. Figure 3 shows the
virtually delay-free voltage response to a 4 kV ESD pulse in the time domain.

Figure 3
Voltage response in the time domain to a standard ESD pulse acc. to IEC 61000-4-2
(4 kV contact discharge) for an examplary CTVS of the low clamping voltage series.

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1.2.2 Electrical fast transient (EFT) - burst to IEC 61000-4-4

According to IEC 61000-4-4, burst pulses are low-energy transients with steep edges and high
repetition rate. Thus, for equipment to pass burst testing successfully, design (line filter, grounding
concept, case) is as critical as the choice of the CTVS. If IEC 61000-4-5 has been taken into ac-
count when selecting CTVS, they will normally also handle the burst pulse energy without any
problems.
Due to the steepness of the pulse edges, the CTVS must be connected in a way which keeps par-
asitic circuit inductance low.

1.2.3 Surge voltage to IEC 61000-4-5

The immunity to interference against surge voltages is tested in accordance with IEC 61000-4-5.
The transient is generated using a combination wave hybrid generator.
The severity level to be applied in the immunity test must be defined as a function of the installa-
tion conditions.
In most cases, the respective product standards demand five positive and five negative voltage
pulses. Standard IEC 61000-4-5 specifies severity level 4 (line-to-line, 4 kV) as being the highest
energy load.

1.3 EMC protection standards in the automotive sector

1.3.1 ESD protection

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a rapid and short lasting surge of electric current that flows be-
tween two different objects when they come together and an excess of electric charge is trans-
fered between them. Voltages up to 25 kV can be generated in this way. To ensure proper func-
tionality in automotive systems, ESD protection must be available from the component level up to
the system level. At the component level there are three standards for passive electronic compo-
nents:
IEC 61000-4-2 level 4 (explained in previous section)
AEC-Q200, Rev. D
ISO 10605 (2008)

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1.3.1.1 AEC-Q200, Rev. D

Figure 4 shows the human body model (HBM), a capacitance and resistance model that uses the
elements of the electrical circuit to characterize a person as a source of electrostatic charging for
automotive conditions.

Figure 4
HBM ESD simulator circuit according to AEC-Q200, Rev. D
Further ESD models are the machine model (MM) or the charged device model (CDM), for exam-
ple. The MM simulates the discharge of a machine into an electronic device via metal contact.
This is reflected in the discharge current by a smaller resistance and a higher capacitance. Gen-
erally, the MM test case is sufficiently covered by the HBM test. The CDM simulates the dis-
charge of a charged component package into a low-ohmic contact via displacement current over
the intrinsic equivalent component capacitance. This method is generally not applicable to multi-
layer CTVS.
The table below shows the classification levels for passive components to AEC-Q200, Rev. D.
Component Max. withstand voltage
classification
1A < 500 V (DC)
1B 500 V (DC) to < 1000 V (DC)
1C 1000 V (DC) to < 2000 V (DC)
2 2000 V (DC) to < 4000 V (DC)
3 4000 V (DC) to < 6000 V (DC)
4 6000 V (DC) to < 8000 V (DC)
5A 8000 V (DC) to < 12000 V (AD)
5B 12000 V (AD) to < 16000 V (AD)
5C 16000 V (AD) to < 25000 V (AD)
6 ≥ 25000 V (AD)
DC = contact discharge
AD = air discharge

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1.3.1.2 ISO 10605

ISO 10605 (2008) specifies test methods for electrical disturbance from ESD related to automo-
tive electronics both for components (simulated discharge from humans during assembly process
or service case) and for integrated systems in cars. The HBM circuitry is similar to that shown in
the IEC 61000-4-2 (see section 1.2.1) or the AEC-Q200, Rev. D (see section 1.3.1.1) but the ca-
pacitance is changed depending on whether or not the discharge is applied to an area that can be
reached by the person inside the vehicle (e.g. switches, displays, controls) or if it is applied from
outside the car. This is shown in the table below.

R in Ω C in pF Maximum test voltage

Inside vehicle 330 or 2 k 330 15 kV
Outside vehicle 330 or 2 k 150 25 kV
HBM conditions to ISO 10605 (2008)

There are different severity levels for the vehicle test methods defined in the standard, depending
on the discharge mode (contact discharge, air discharge) and the applied test voltage.

1.3.2 Automotive transients acc. to ISO 7637-2 and ISO 16750-2

The standards ISO 7637-2 and ISO 16750-2 detail EMC testing for automotive electrical systems,
including test pulses 1, 2a/2b and 3a/3b (acc. to ISO 7637-2), and test pulses A and B (acc. to
ISO 16750-2). The toughest tests for transient suppression are pulses A and B (shown in figures
5 and 6), which simulate load dump. Load dump occurs when a battery is accidentally discon-
nected from the generator while the engine is running, e.g. because of a broken cable. For test
pulse A, 10 pulses are to be applied at 1 minute intervals, whereas for test pulse B, 5 pulses at 1
minute intervals are required.

Figure 5 Figure 6
Load dump test pulse A to ISO 16750-2 Load dump test pulse B to ISO 16750-2
(unsuppressed) (suppressed)

Legend:
Charge voltage (test level) VS
Rise time tr
Duration td

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Protection standards for electromagnetic compatibility

1.3.2.1 Tests

Maintenance of EMC requirements can be checked with conventional test generators. Figures 7
and 8 show block diagrams for load dump tests with operating voltage applied.

Typical values
C0 20 ... 35 mF
R0 4 ... 10 Ω
C1 0 ... 10 µF
Ri 0.5 ... 8 Ω
VL 0 ... 200 V
VDC 12 ... 28 V
td 40 ... 400 ms
vVAR Protection level of varistor
Figure 7 iVAR Current through varistor
Principle of load dump generator with battery connected in
parallel

The circuit in figure 8 produces test pulse A to ISO 16750-2; the 10% time constant td can be set
independently of the battery voltage. Note that the maximum discharge current is not limited by
the source VDC.

Typical values
C0 4.7 ... 47 mF
R0 4 ... 5 Ω
C1 47 ... 470 µF
Ri 0.5 ... 8 Ω
VL 0 ... 200 V
VDC 12 ... 28 V
td 40 ... 400 ms
vVAR Protection level of varistor
iVAR Current through varistor

Figure 8
Principle of load dump generator with battery connected in
series

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