“STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) , a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, is helping protect today’s smart devices by making shirt pockets, car dashboards, office desks, and other statically dangerous locations safer through the introduction of a new software tool that guides the selection of the right protection components for integrated-circuit designs right from the beginning. People, clothing, and objects can easily accumulate static charges of many thousands of volts that may give a minor shock to the human body but present a growing threat to increasingly delicate chips in devices like smartphones and tablets, computers, or televisions. Exposed ports such as USB or HDMI™ sockets are especially vulnerable to these electrostatic discharges (ESD). The protection circuitry needed to handle ESD energy often requires testing with a real prototype where late design changes add to costs and cause delays. ST’s new free online software tool, ESD-SIM, answers this challenge. It is capable of assessing both circuit protection and signal integrity, to help select the right ESD-protection components from ST’s portfolio before hardware is built.”