Cable-Discharge-Event (CDE)

A cable-discharge-event (ger.: Kabelentladung) denotes the discharge of a charged cable that comes into contact to a grounded conductive object. Typically, cable-discharge events can occur, when a cable connector is plugged into the jack of an electrical device. In the course of a CDE, either the entire cable or only a few of its wires can be discharged.

As a result of the increasing application of "plug & play" devices (PnP) in computer technology, the number of cable-discharge events has considerably increased. Examples of typical PnP connections are USB, HDMI and ethernet cables. However, cable-discharge events can occur even during the one-time assembly of wiring harnesses in electrical systems. The discharge pulses of cable-discharge events depend on the length of the given cable and can be simulated quite well by TLP for cable lengths up to 3m.