“I thought an EMP of a significant power “melts” or fries or crumps mico-circuits, rendering them non-functional.”
That’s a pretty accurate description of the semiconductor failure mode. Radiated energy from an emp couples to conductors. If it’s enough energy and it gets to a semiconductor junction, it will arc across it-killing it. It can take as little as 1v to 10v depending on the semiconductor technology to burn it out.
Thanks. Explains it quite well.