The 5.6-V Zener diodes, used to protect the communication pins of the gas gauge from ESD, should be located as close as possible to the pack connector. The grounded end of these Zener diodes should be returned to the Pack(–) node rather than to the low-current digital ground system. This way, ESD is diverted away from the sensitive electronics as much as possible.

In some applications, it is sometimes necessary to cause transitions on the communication lines to trigger events that manage the gas gauge power modes. An example of one of these transitions is detecting a sustained low logic level on the communication lines to detect that a pack has been removed. Given that most of the gas gauges do not have internal pulldown networks, it is necessary to add a weak pulldown resistor to accomplish this when there's an absence of a strong pullup resistor on the system side. If the weak pulldown resistor is used, it may take less board space to use a small capacitor in parallel instead of the Zener diode to absorb any ESD transients that are received through communication lines.