On-chip IEC-ESD protection is good for laboratory and portable equipment but often insufficient for EFT and surge transients occurring in industrial environments. Therefore robust and reliable bus node design requires the use of external transient protection devices.

Because ESD and EFT transients have a wide frequency bandwidth from approximately 3 MHz to 3 GHz, high-frequency layout techniques must be applied during PCB design.

1. Place the protection circuitry close to the bus connector to prevent noise transients from entering the board.
2. Use V_CC and ground planes to provide low-inductance. High-frequency currents follow the path of least inductance and not the path of least impedance.
3. Design the protection components into the direction of the signal path. Do not force the transient currents to divert from the signal path to reach the protection device.
4. Apply 100-nF to 220-nF bypass capacitors as close as possible to the V_CC pins of the transceiver, UART, or controller ICs on the board.
5. Use at least two vias for V_CC and ground connections of bypass capacitors and protection devices to minimize effective via inductance.
6. Use 1-kΩ to 10-kΩ pullup and pulldown resistors for enable lines to limit noise currents in these lines during transient events.
7. While pure TVS protection is sufficient for surge transients up to 1 kV, higher transients require metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) which reduce the transients to a few hundred volts of clamping voltage, and transient blocking units (TBUs) that limit transient current to less than 1 mA.