An investigation into the performance of the IEC 1000-4-4 capacitive clamp

The IEC 1000-4-4 Electrical Fast Transient test, like ESD, is a severe pulsed EMI immunity test. Data presented shows that the test may be too severe and contains repeatability problems that causes excessive cost to be added to designs. In addition, a common mistake in application of the test is shown to double the stress on the equipment being tested.