What would happen if static electricity were discharged to the motor driver logic? Isn’t any protection implemented on-chip?

If static electricity is introduced into a motor driver from a charged object, the on-chip general-purpose CMOS logic may be permanently damaged. Because the gate oxide layer at input gates is only several tens to several hundred angstroms thick, it may be punctured by an electrostatic discharge (ESD) of several hundred to several thousand volts. To protect input gates from ESD, Toshiba's motor drivers have protection circuitry at logic input pins. However, ESD should never be discharged directly into a device; even with protection circuitry, the device might be degraded or damaged.

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