LearnESD.com » ESD handling http://learnesd.com/blog A portal for ESD information. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:36:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 The simple way of checking ESD gloves and finger cots http://learnesd.com/blog/the-simple-way-of-checking-esd-gloves-and-finger-cots/ http://learnesd.com/blog/the-simple-way-of-checking-esd-gloves-and-finger-cots/#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:54:23 +0000 admin http://learnesd.com/blog/the-simple-way-of-checking-esd-gloves-and-finger-cots/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> It is a common sight to see workers in electronic manufacturing industry wearing some kind of gloves or finger cots while working with the products.

Workers wear gloves or finger cots to protect the products from being damaged by contamination, finger prints or scratches from the wearer.

In most electronic manufacturing industries, ESD gloves and finger cots are widely used to provide ESD protection for the ESD sensitive parts that the companies produce.

There is a variety of ESD gloves and finger cots in the market place which are specially made for ESD protection purpose. Some of them include:

•ESD nitrile gloves , ESD vinyl gloves , ESD latex gloves, ESD conductive gloves
•Nitrile finger cots, pink ESD finger cots, Black Static dissipative finger cots

A good choice of ESD gloves or finger cots would be the one that meet your company process requirements. The company process requirements could require both ESD and clean room (contamination control) requirements or only ESD requirement depending on the type of ESD sensitive parts that the companies are producing.

A strenuous series of testing is required to check whether the ESD gloves or finger cots could induce contamination problems.

For ESD control application, a much simpler method can be used to check whether the ESD gloves or finger cots meet your ESD process control requirement.
For instance, when the workers are required to wear ESD gloves or finger cots before entering the controlled production area, then it is much easier to include and check the ESD gloves and finger cots as part of the system in the checking process.

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]]> http://learnesd.com/blog/the-simple-way-of-checking-esd-gloves-and-finger-cots/feed/ 0 Is taking ESD precaution necessary? http://learnesd.com/blog/is-taking-esd-precaution-necessary/ http://learnesd.com/blog/is-taking-esd-precaution-necessary/#comments Tue, 22 May 2007 15:14:28 +0000 admin http://learnesd.com/blog/is-taking-esd-precaution-necessary/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Is taking ESD precaution necessary? The answer to this question is Yes and No.

It all depends on who you are and where you are.

Static electricity easily builds up when there are two materials come into contact and separate. The amount of static electricity build up on our body intensifies in a drier climate especially during the winter. Many industries practised Static control program to safe guard the ESD sensitive components and products that they use and make. Million of dollars are spent to buy the ESD protective equipments and materials that to provide ESD protection for their products e.g. ESD mats, air ionizers, wrist strap, esd smock etc.

In an established organisation, taking ESD precaution is necessary. Organisations have the system in place that make sure every one of its employees is following the pre-set static control rules.

At home, some computer veteran or specialist may omit the ESD precaution when they open up or repair their computers. They are aware of static electricity build up and they know the need to discharge them by either frequently touching the metal chassis of the computer or any grounded metal part around them. They hold the computer boards by their edges and they wear cotton clothing during working with them. For many years they do not encounter any problems with their computers and which make them believe there is no need to take any ESD precaution.

In an actual fact they actually do take ESD precaution without their knowledge. But the kind of ESD precaution that they take is different from the one being practised in most organisations whereby employees are required to wear wrist strap, having air ionizer at work bench, use anti static floor mat etc.

As technology moves forwards, many of the electronic devices are now getting smaller and consuming less power which makes them more susceptible to esd damage.

The electronic devices can be damaged by static electricity as little as 20 volts.Human can only feel the static shock when there is a minimum of 3000 volts of static electricity.

The electronic devices actually receive the static shock when our fingers make contact with the metal pins or any uncoated metal traces on the printed circuit boards. As little as 20 volts of static electricity, we are not aware that we have actually wounded or killed the ESD sensitive devices.

When the electronic device receives multiple static shocks through our handling, the electronic devices are weaken and partially damaged and over the time, intermittent failures, data loss and other nuisance problems will pop up now and then which will then lead to eventual failure.

As humans tend to forget at one time or another, it is always encouraged to take a minimum ESD precaution when working with computer boards in home.

Wearing an ESD wrist strap, placing the ESD sensitive devices on the grounded anti static mat, having a humidifier at the working area and removing all the insulators e.g. a Styrofoam cup from the working area are the few things that need to be taken.

 

  

 

 

 

 

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]]> http://learnesd.com/blog/is-taking-esd-precaution-necessary/feed/ 0 PC and ESD http://learnesd.com/blog/pc-and-esd/ http://learnesd.com/blog/pc-and-esd/#comments Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:20:50 +0000 admin http://learnesd.com/blog/pc-and-esd/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Nowadays almost everyone owns a computer at home. Computers have become a part of our lives: to access to news around the globe and information of any kind at anytime we like. Some people assemble computers to sell and some even open up and repair their own computers. There are few things that we should be aware of to prevent the computer parts from being damaged by electrostatic discharge or rather known as ESD. Major computer parts like motherboard, central processing unit (CPU) chip or microprocessor, random access memory (RAM) card, video card and hard disk drive are sensitive towards ESD damage.
As a precaution, we have to wear a wrist strap when working with these computer parts. The wrist strap must be snug against our skin to ensure a good connection for draining the static charges from our body. Connect an alligator clip to the banana plug of the other end of wrist strap ground cord. Connect the alligator clip to the computer chassis when working with the computer parts.
The computer is at the OFF state with the AC power cord of the computer remain attached to the power outlet or receptacle to provide ground path to drain the static charges. Another way is to connect the banana plug of your wrist strap to a ground adapter plug, for example, GAP-005 ground adapter plug. It is always advisable to set up a static protective workbench with a grounded ESD mat on the work surface to place all the sensitive computer parts. Besides taking the ESD precaution, we also need to handle especially the hard disk drive part with care as they are easily damaged by vibration and shock. When buying a new computer part like motherboard, hard disk drive, video card, RAM card or CPU microprocessor, we need to ensure the part is packaged inside the ESD protective bag, for example, shielding bag with an extra protection from vibration and shock for the hard disk drive part.

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]]> http://learnesd.com/blog/pc-and-esd/feed/ 0 Control ESD Problems through Proper Handling at EPA Workbenches http://learnesd.com/blog/control-esd-problems-through-proper-handling-at-epa-workbenches/ http://learnesd.com/blog/control-esd-problems-through-proper-handling-at-epa-workbenches/#comments Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:33:41 +0000 admin http://learnesd.com/blog/control-esd-problems-through-proper-handling-at-epa-workbenches/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Electrostatic Discharge or ESD is going to receive more attention from industries in the future. Electronic chips are getting smaller and designed to work faster with more complex features. These make ESDS items more susceptible to ESD damage.  Without a proper ESD control in the manufacturing, more ESD sensitive items are easily damaged. This results in more products return, low yield, increasing operation cost and unsatisfied customers.  Quality product is important for any company to sustain in today’s competitive business world. Companies require proper manufacturing practices to compete and earn larger market share in the global business world. ESD problems can be controlled. A proper handling of ESDS items is one of the key principles to bring the problems under control. Here are the few examples:   

ESD S20.20-1999 Standard requires an employee to wear a wrist strap when handling ESDS items in a seated position. At times the employee does not snug the wrist strap band properly to his skin. This causes the employee ungrounded. Static charges that are built up within his body due to movements would pose a danger to the ESDS items. Technology is moving fast. A new wrist strap monitor which is battery operated is now available in the marketplace. This wrist strap monitor will give out a visual indicator and an alarm whenever a person is not properly grounded.  

Soldering iron that is used by an employee during the touch up work needs to be grounded.  The ESD Standard requires the tip to ground of the soldering iron to be not more than 20 ohm when in use. It requires a periodic check on the tip to ground of the soldering iron to ensure that it is at the same electric potential with the ESDS items, which are placed on a grounded ESD mat.  The ESD mat that acts as a work surface on the workbench must have an ability to drain static charges at a rate, which is not too fast or too slow.A two-layered rubber ESD Mat that is made from a top conductive layer and a bottom dissipative layer is the most recommended ESD mat. It provides a resistance to ground between 1×10E6 ohms to 1×10E9 ohm, which falls within the recommended resistance range of the ESD Standard. It is unavoidable not to have process insulator like connector plastic containers at workbenches. When this situation arises, use ionizers to neutralize any unwanted static charges on the insulators. Overhead ionizers, bench top ionizers and air gun blowers are the most commonly used ionizers at workbenches. Again companies have to check the functionality of these ionizers periodically. ESD standard recommends offset voltage of the ionizer not to be more than 50Volt. However the offset voltage of the ionizer needs a tighter limit when dealing with more sensitive parts.

Your customer may request your employee to wear gloves during handling of their products. What type of glove is suitable for use? Gloves with anti-static property like nitrile gloves or lint-free ESD gloves are the few types that would meet your needs.  

At ESD Protected workbenches, employees wear ESD smocks to protect the ESDS items from the harmful static field, which is created from their internal street clothing. ESD smocks consist of many conductive fibres sewn in them. These conductive fibres become floating conductors when ESD smocks are not grounded. As ESDS components become more sensitive toward ESD damage, it is recommended to ground the ESD smocks.

  

   

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]]> http://learnesd.com/blog/control-esd-problems-through-proper-handling-at-epa-workbenches/feed/ 0 ESD Handling http://learnesd.com/blog/esd-handling/ http://learnesd.com/blog/esd-handling/#comments Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:34:37 +0000 admin http://learnesd.com/blog/esd-handling/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> A person should wear all the necessary ESD protective materials such as: 

  • ESD smock
  • ESD wrist strap
  • ESD shoes      before he enters an ESD Protected area (EPA).  

Most of the time a person would wear gloves or finger cots while at work to prevent oil stain or finger mark. ESD gloves or ESD finger cots should be used while handling the ESDS items. 

  1. ESD smock : An ESD smock is a garment, which is worn to protect ESDS items from the electric field that is generated from the wearer’s internal street clothing. They are various type of ESD smock in the market and they also come in many colours: sky blue, pink, yellow, dark blue and white to name a few. 
  2. ESD wrist strap : An ESD wrist strap can be a single conductor wrist strap or a dual conductor wrist strap system. Users have to choose a suitable wrist strap to match their wrist strap continuous monitoring system which either can be a capacitance, resistance or voltage type. 
  3. ESD shoes : An ESD shoes can either be a normal static control shoes or an ESD safety shoes. Both normal Static control shoes and ESD safety shoes serve to ground any static charges that are built up within a wearer through the contact between the ESD shoes and the ESD flooring.
  4. ESD glove : An ESD glove is either made from clear dissipative materials or polyesters sewn with conductive fibres.
  5. ESD finger cot : An ESD finger cot is either made from pink dissipative materials or black conductive materials. Black conductive finger cots are more expensive than dissipative finger cots. 

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