Electronic System Design

& Manufacturing (ESDM)

Goa College of Engineering

Department of Electronics and Telecommunication

Presentation By
Mehaboob Mujawar
Electrostatic Discharge
(Unit 4)
 Electrostatic Discharge
Introduction:
� Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the sudden flow of electricity between
two electrically charged objects caused by contact, an electrical short,
or dielectric breakdown.
� The ESD occurs when differently-charged objects are brought close
together or when the dielectric between them breaks down, often
creating a visible spark.
� Electrostatic discharge (ESD) has become a hazard to the electronics
industry.
� Since the early 1960s, it has been recognized that many integrated
circuits (ICs), metal-oxide semiconductors (MOSs), discrete electrical
parts such as film resistors and capacitors, and crystals are susceptible
to damage from electrostatic discharge.
� As electronic devices become smaller, faster, and operate at lower
voltages, their susceptibility to ESD will increase.
 Electrostatic Discharge
Static Generation
� Static electricity can be created in many different ways, but the most common
is by contact and subsequent separation of materials.
� The materials may be solids, liquids, or gases. When two non-conductors
(insulators) are in contact, some charge (electrons) is transferred from one
material to the other.
� Because charge is not very mobile in an insulator, when the two materials are
separated, this charge may not return to the original material. If the two
materials were originally neutral, they will now be charged, one positively
and the other negatively.
� This method of generating static electricity is referred to as triboelectric
charging.
� In ancient times, static electricity was generated by rubbing wool against
amber. Tribos is the Greek word for rubbing, and elektron is the Greek word
for amber, so triboelectric means ‘‘rubbing amber.’’
� Although we tend to think that rubbing is required to generate charge between
two materials, that is not true, all that is actually required is that the materials
come into contact and are then subsequently separated.
� Rubbing tends to increase the pressure of the contact and bring more of the
surface in contact and hence increases the charge transfer. Faster separation
allows less time for charge reflow, which also increases the charge transfer
 Electrostatic Discharge
Static Generation
� Some materials readily absorb electrons, whereas others tend to give
them up easily.
� The triboelectric series is a listing of materials in order of their affinity
for giving up electrons. Table 15-1 is a typical triboelectric series.
� The materials at the top of the table easily give up electrons and
therefore acquire a positive charge.
� The materials at the bottom of the table easily absorb electrons and
therefore acquire a negative charge.
 Electrostatic Discharge
Static Generation
� When two materials are in contact, electrons will transfer from the
material higher on the list to the material lower on the list.
� The degree of separation of the two materials in Table 15-1 does not
necessarily indicate the magnitude of the charge created.
� The magnitude depends not only on the position of the materials in the
triboelectric series but also on the surface cleanliness, pressure of the
contact, amount of rubbing, surface area in contact, smoothness of
surface, and the speed of separation.
� A charge can also be generated when two pieces of the same material
are in contact and subsequently separated, although in this case which
of the two will acquire a positive charge and which a negative charge
cannot be predicted. A good example of this is the opening of a plastic
bag.
 Electrostatic Discharge
Static Generation
� Charge is measured in coulombs, which is difficult to measure.
Therefore we normally refer to the electrostatic potential (measured in
volts) of an object, rather than its charge. The relationship between
charge, voltage, and capacitance is V=Q/C.
� As two materials are separated, the charge imbalance Q remains fixed;
therefore, the product VC is a constant.
� When the materials are close together, the capacitance is large; hence,
the voltage is low.
� As the materials are separated, the capacitance decreases and the
voltage increases. For example, if the capacitance is 75 pF and the
charge is 3 mC, the voltage will be 40,000 V.
� Triboelectric charging also occurs when an insulator is separated from a
conductor, but not when two conductors are separated. In the latter
case, as soon as separation starts, the charge returns to the original
material, because the mobility of charge is large in a conductor.
 Static Generation
Static electricity is a surface phenomenon
� The static charge exists solely on the surface of the materials and not
inside them.
� The charge on an insulator remains in the area where it is created and is
not distributed within the material or over the entire surface of the
material. Grounding an insulator will not eliminate the charge.
� If charge is created on a conductor, the like polarity charges want to
separate from each other and therefore will distribute themselves over
the entire surface of the conductor, because the surface is the farthest
that the charges can move away from each other.
� None of the charge will be inside the conductor, but it will exist only on
the surface. Unlike an insulator, however, a charged conductor will lose
its charge if grounded.
 Static Generation
Electrostatic discharge is normally a three-step process as follows:
1. A charge is generated on an insulator.
2. This charge is transferred to a conductor by contact or induction.
3. The charged conductor comes near a metal object and a discharge occurs.
� For example, when a person walks across a carpet, the soles of their shoes
(insulators) become charged as they make contact and separation from the
carpet.
� This charge is then transferred to their body (a conductor) usually by induction.
If the person then touches a metallic object (grounded or not), a discharge
occurs.
� When the discharge occurs to an ungrounded object (e.g., a doorknob), the
discharge current flows through the capacitance between the object and ground.
� A charged insulator by itself is not directly an ESD threat. Since the charge on
an insulator is not free to move, it cannot produce a static discharge.
� The danger from a charged insulator comes from its potential for producing a
charge, usually by induction, onto a conductor, such as a person, which then is
capable of a discharge.
 Static Generation
Inductive Charging
� An electrically charged object (insulator or conductor) is surrounded by an
electrostatic field.
� If a neutral conductor is brought into the vicinity of a charged object, the
electrostatic field will cause the balanced charges on the neutral conductor to
separate as shown in Fig.
� The polarity of charge opposite to that on the charged body will be on the
surface of the neutral conductor nearest the charged body, and the opposite
polarity charge will be on the surface farthest away.
� The conductor will remain neutral, however, with equal amounts of positive
and negative charge.
� When the neutral object is moved away from the charged object, the positive
and negative charges will recombine.
 Static Generation
Inductive Charging
� If, however, a connection is made between the neutral conductor and ground
(e.g., the object is touched by a person or a grounded object) while in the
vicinity of the charged object, the charge on the side of the neutral conductor
farthest away from the charged object will bleed off, as shown in Fig. 15-2A.
� Then, if the ground is removed, as in Fig. 15-2B, while the conductor is still in
the vicinity of the charged object, the conductor will be charged without ever
having come in contact with the charged object.
� The ground connection only has to be momentary, and it can have considerable
impedance (100 kΩ or more).
 Static Generation
Energy Storage
� Although charge exists on the surface of an object, the energy (field) associated
with the charge is stored in the object’s capacitance.
� Normally, we think of capacitance as occurring between closely spaced parallel
plates. However, all objects have a free-space capacitance of their own, the
object itself being one of the plates and the second plate being located at
infinity. This represents the minimum capacitance that an object can have.
� The free-space capacitance of even an irregularly shaped object is determined
primarily by its surface area.
� Therefore, the free-space capacitance can be approximated by considering the
simple geometry of two concentric spheres, one sphere having the same surface
area as the object and the second sphere located at infinity.
 Static Generation
Energy Storage
� The capacitance between two concentric spheres is:

where C is the capacitance in pF and r is the radius of the sphere in meters.

� Besides the free-space capacitance given by Eq. 15-3, additional parallel plate
capacitance also exists because of the proximity of the object to other
surrounding objects.
� The capacitance between two parallel plates is equal to C= εA/D

where A is the area of the plates and D is the distance between the plates.
� The total capacitance of an object is then the combination of the free-space
capacitance plus the parallel plate capacitance to adjacent objects.
 Human body model
Human body model
� Humans are a prime source of electrostatic discharge.

� As previously discussed, it is easy for a person to build up a static charge.

� This charge can then be transferred from the person to a piece of sensitive
electronic equipment in the form of an electrostatic discharge.
� To model this human body discharge, we start with the capacitance of the
human body.
� In addition to the 50 pF of free-space capacitance,
the primary contributor to the capacitance of the
body comes from the capacitance between the
soles of the feet and ground.
� As shown, this is about 100 pF (50 pF per foot).

� Additional capacitance of 50 to 100 pF may exist

because of the proximity of the person to other
surrounding objects, such as structures, walls, and
so on.
� Therefore, the capacitance of the human body
varies between 50 and 250 pF.
 Human body model
Human body model
� The human body model (HBM) for ESD is shown in Fig. 15-5.

� The body capacitance Cb is charged up to a voltage Vb by triboelectric

charging (or other means), and the discharge occurs through the body resistance
Rb.
� The body resistance is important because it limits the discharge current. The
body resistance can vary from about 500 to 10,000 Ω, depending on which part
of the body the discharge occurs from.
� If the discharge is from the tip of the finger, then the resistance will be about
10,000 Ω; if from the palm of the hand, about 1000 Ω; if from a small metal
object in the hand (e.g., a key or a coin), it will be about 500 Ω. If, however, the
discharge occurs from a large metal object in contact with the person, such as a
chair or a shopping cart, the resistance can be as low as 50 Ω.
 Human body model
Human body model
� Figure 15-6 shows the typical wave shape produced by a 150-pF, 330-Ω human
body model discharge into a special 2-Ω test target.
� The rise time is 0.7 to 1 ns, and the peak current is 30 A for an 8-kV discharge,
and 15 A for a 4-kV discharge.
 Static discharge
Static Discharge
� Charge accumulated on an object leaves the object by one of two ways, leakage
or arcing.
� Because it is better to avoid arcing, leakage is the preferred way to discharge an
object.
� Charge can leak off an object through the air, because of humidity. The higher
humidity, the faster the charge will leak off the object.
� The charge on an object can also be counteracted by using an ionizer to fill the
air with positive and negative charged ions.
� The opposite polarity ions will be attracted to the object and will neutralize the
charge on it. The more ions present, the faster the charge will be neutralized.
� Leakage from a charged conductor can be made to occur by intentionally
grounding the object. This ground may be a hard ground (close to 0 Ω) or a
soft ground (a large impedance, a few hundred thousand ohms to a few
megohms) that will limit the current flow.
 Static discharge
Static Discharge
� Because the human body is conductive, grounding it with a conductive wrist
strap, for example, will drain off the charge.
� However, grounding a person will not drain the static charge from his or her
clothing (non conductors), or from a plastic object held in the hand. To remove
the charge from these objects, ionization or high humidity (> 50%) must be
used.
� When grounding a person, a hard ground should be avoided because of the
safety hazard that would exist if the person came in contact with the ac power
line or another high voltage.
� The minimum impedance that should be used in grounding a person is 250 kΩ.
Grounded wrist straps usually have a 1-M Ω resistance to ground. The higher
the resistance, the longer it will take for the charge to bleed off the object.
 Static discharge
Decay Time
� Because the charge on an object may leak off over a period of time, an
important parameter is the decay time—the time it takes for the charge to be
reduced to 37% of its initial value. The decay time (sometimes called the
relaxation time) is equal to τ = ε/σ.
� where ε is the dielectric constant for the material and σ is the conductivity. The
decay time can also be written in terms of the surface resistivity of the material
and is τ = ερ
� Based on surface resistivity, materials are classified into four categories, as
Conductive, Static Dissipative, Antistatic and Insulative.
� Conductive materials are the fastest to dissipate charge and can be dangerous
when used near already charged electronic devices. If a charged device should
come in contact with a grounded conductive material, then it will be discharged
rapidly with a large peak current, and damage may result.
� Static-dissipative materials are preferred to conductive materials because charge
dissipation occurs at a slower rate. Grounded static-dissipative materials can be
used to prevent charge buildup and to discharge objects already charged safely.
 Static discharge
Decay Time
� Antistatic materials are the slowest to dissipate charge. Nevertheless, they are
useful because they can dissipate charge faster than it is generated and therefore
prevent an object from accumulating a charge. An example of this is a pink
polyethylene bag.
� Static-dissipative and Antistatic materials are the preferred materials to use in
an ESD-sensitive environment, such as a manufacturing line for electronic
equipment.
� Insulators do not dissipate charge but retain whatever charge they have.
Examples are a polyethylene bag and Styrofoam packing material. These
materials should not be allowed in an ESD-sensitive environment.
 ESD PROTECTION IN EQUIPMENT DESIGN
ESD protection in equipment design:
� ESD protection should be part of the original system design and not added at
the end, when testing indicates a problem exists.
� Effective ESD immunity design requires a three-pronged approach:

1. First, prevent or minimize the entry of the transient currents by:

◦ Effective design of the enclosure
◦ Cable shielding
◦ Providing transient protection on all conductors of unshielded external cables
2. Second, harden sensitive circuits, such as:
• Resets
• Interrupts
• Other critical control inputs
3. Third, write transient hardened software capable of detecting, and if possible
correcting, errors in the following:
• Program flow
• Input/output (I/O) data
• Memory
 ESD PROTECTION IN EQUIPMENT DESIGN
ESD protection in equipment design:
� A circuit or system may be protected from a static discharge by any of the
following:
1. Eliminating the static build up on the source
2. Insulating the product to prevent a discharge
3. Providing an alternative path for the discharge current to bypass the sensitive
circuits
4. Shielding the circuit against the electric fields produced by the discharge
5. Decreasing loop areas to protect the circuit from the magnetic fields produced
by the discharge.
� ESD-induced effects in electronic systems can be divided into the following
three categories:
1. Hard errors
2. Soft errors
3. Transient upset
 ESD PROTECTION IN EQUIPMENT DESIGN
ESD protection in equipment design:
� Hard errors cause actual damage to the system hardware(destruction of an IC)

� Soft errors affect system operation (e.g., a changed memory bit or program
lockup) but do not cause physical damage.
� Transient upset does not cause an error, but the effect is perceptible (e.g.,
rolling of a CRT display, or momentary changing of a display reading).
� Transient upset is allowed, but no soft or hard errors are allowed.

� The first step in designing equipment to be immune to ESD is to prevent the

direct discharge from flowing through the susceptible circuitry. This can be
accomplished either by insulating the circuit or by providing an alternative path
for the discharge current.
� If insulation is used, it must be complete, because a spark can enter through an
extremely narrow air gap, such as a seam or the air gap surrounding the keys on
a keyboard. For example, a discharge can occur through something as small as a
pinhole.
 ESD PROTECTION IN EQUIPMENT DESIGN
ESD protection in equipment design:
� In the case of a product in a metallic enclosure, the enclosure can be used as an
alternative path for the ESD current.
� To divert the ESD current effectively from sensitive circuits, all metallic
components of the enclosure must be bonded together. If the enclosure is not
electrically continuous, then a portion of the current may be forced to flow
through the internal circuitry as shown.
� The basic principle of ESD bonding
and grounding is to use low-
inductance multipoint bonding where
ESD current is desired and The single-
point bonding where ESD current flow
is not wanted.