On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, John Payson wrote:

> | You can
> | speed up erasure time by placing the chip erasure window
> | even closer to the UV lamp. I usually use pieces of that
> | black or pink anti-static carrier foam to hold the chips
> | where I want them to be.
>
> I would suggest the black material over the pink; the black
> material is slightly conductive, ensuring that any static
> charge on any part of its surface will slowly spread out over
> the entire thing; thus it's impossible for one spot on the
> foam to hold a charge relative to the rest of it.  The pink
> stuff works by refusing to easily accept or give up electrons
> on its surface (so it won't take a charge in the first place).
> In many situations this is just as good, but strong UV can
> cause ionisation (i.e. electrostatic buildup) in many materials
> including those inside the PIC and it's probably a good idea to
> give those ions a safe path lest they find an unsafe one (e.g.
> by breaking down the PIC's dielectric).

Ionized air is a better conductor than the other kind of air. Ionizers are
used among other things to get rid of static buildup in places where other
methods can't be used. Ionized air also tends to purify the air by
oxydizing what there is to be oxydized (ex: organic fumes and trace
elements, such as smelly organic compounds).

Peter