ESD events of cabled GMR sensors

Abstract

ESD damage from cable discharge events (CDEs) of magnetoresistive sensors is a major problem in manufacturing of magnetic tape and hard disk drives. CDEs initiated by contact to the cable pads used to connect to external electronics represent one source. This paper addresses CDEs from other points of contact, including capacitive coupling to metal objects contacting the cable. In order for capacitively coupled ESD events to damage the sensor the capacitive coupling of the two sensor leads to the external object being discharge must be different.