Abstract
We investigated the malfunction and destruction characteristics of microcontroller devices under high power electromagnetic(HPEM) wave by magnetron. HPEM was rated at a microwave output of 0 to 1,000 W, at a frequency of 2,450${\pm}$50 MHz and was radiated from the open-ended standard rectangular waveguide(WR-340) to free space. The influence of different reset-, clock-, data-, and power supply-line lengths has been tested. The variation of the line length was done with flat cables. The susceptibility of the tested microcontroller devices was in general much influenced by clock-, reset-, and power supply-line length, little influenced by data-line length. Further the line length was increased, the malfunction threshold was decreased as expected, because more energy couples to the devices. The surfaces of the destroyed microcontroller devices were removed and the chip conditions were investigated with microscope. The microscopic analysis of the damaged devices showed component and bondwire destructions such as breakthroughs and melting due to thermal effects. The obtained results are expected to provide fundamental data for interpreting the combined mechanism of microcontroller devices in an intentional microwave environment.
