Many automotive applications exist in humid environments where conformal coating is necessary to prevent potential shorts between pins of ICs on the electrical control unit. These conformal coatings are expensive, increase manufacturing time, and make trouble shooting afterward very difficult. With more humidity resistant devices this conformal coating material does not have to be as extensive which can reduce prices and manufacturing time. The worst case resistive short due to humidity is expected to be 100 kΩ and the device needs to be tested adjacent pins-to-pins and each pin-to-ground showing the device still functions.
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While it would be quick to set up a humidity chamber and test our device in the humidity chamber, the results might not be easily reproducible. We determined that developing a board with configurable 100 kΩ (expected worst-case condition) shorts between each adjacent pin to pin, and pin to GND can be reproducible and show that TPS22995H-Q1 can still function within expectations.