Charles Craft wrote:
> Not sure how you would prove it one way or the other but do you
> always store PICs loose in plastic drawers like the ones in the
> picture?
>
> Are the chips that robust or do you always make sure to lick your
> finger, touch a good ground and then pull the chip out of the tray?

I've got about 1000 small parts drawers like those for all kinds of parts,
not just PICs.  Some have anti-static black foam or chip carriers in them,
but mostly everything just gets thrown into the drawers loosely.

Keep in mind how static electricity works and how it damages ICs.  There
have to be two conductors at a significantly different potential with
sufficient capacitance between them to store charge.  Then two separate pins
of the IC have to be connected each to one of the two charges.  Then the
resistance has to be so low that the inrush is so high as to blow out the
protection diodes.

Your body can be one of these conductors, but we have a concrete floor here
so that rarely gets to meaningful levels.  If the other side is just a IC
pin, there isn't enough capacitance to cause enough current to do any
damage.  The inside of these drawers are good insulators.  Most of the time
the drawers just sit there for days on end.  Dirt, humidity in the air, and
the fact that the plastic isn't a perfect conductor means there isn't likely
any significant voltage on the inside of a drawer when I reach in to get a
IC.  Even if there is, the total charge would have to be very small.  To
cause a problem, you'd pretty much have to deliberately rub the drawer
against a cat or something, then charge yourself up somehow, then grab a PIC
just right and touch it to the drawer just right.  In practice I have never
felt or seen the slightest hint of a zap when touching something in one of
the drawers, and haven't noticed ICs dying as a result of being put in a
drawer and taken out again.  I do notice a zap in the winter when I take off
a certain synthetic sweater and then touch my metal bookcase that sits on
the concrete floor.  That sweater is a much bigger danger, and I'm careful
to discharge myself after handling it before touching anything else.

Static protection isn't voodoo.  Keep the laws of physics in mind instead of
going by what "everyone says".


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