In today’s electronic industries, we can see many organizations are becoming more aware of the importance of having a proper esd control in their production lines to ensure their products are not damaged by electrostatic discharge.

One of the key areas that organizations need to look at is the Qualification process of the ESD materials and equipments.

It is at utmost importance to have the correct ESD materials and equipments used in the production lines to ensure the materials and equipments do not generate lots of static electricity which are harmful to the ESD sensitive parts.

To ensure the ESD materials and equipments are safe for production use, a Qualification process for materials and equipments must first be established. Secondly, correct and suitable ESD equipments must be purchased to help in performing the qualification of the materials and equipments.

The most important and basic esd equipment that would be needed in qualifying the ESD materials and equipment is the Surface resistance meter or Megohmmeter.

In the market places there are many brands and models of surface resistance meters that organizations can choose from. It is highly recommended choosing a surface resistance meter that can do the following measurements:
•Point to point resistance
•Resistance to ground
•Surface resistance and Surface resistivity
•Volume resistance
for both planar and irregular surfaces.

Some of the available surface resistance meter or Megohmmeter that can perform the above measurements in the market places are:
•Ohm-Stat RT1000 Megohmmeter from Static Solutions
•Monroe 272A Portable surface resistivity and resistance meter from Monroe
•Trek 152 Surface resistance meter from Trek

These models employed digital meter with setting at 10V/100V, two five pound electrodes, concentric ring electrode, and 2 point probe resistance meter as their accessories.

ESD measurements on the ESD materials and equipment must be carried out in compliance to ESD standard ANSI/ESD S20.20 and other supporting ESD standards listed in ANSI/ESD S20.20.

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.

Static electricity or imbalance of electrical charges are formed when two materials come into contact and then are separated.
The presence of this static electricity causes much nuisance to many people especially during the winter period when the air is cold and dry. Sparks and static shocks are some of those common experiences.For many organizations, preventing static shocks or discharge is an ongoing activity.
Many ESD products are created to assist organizations to curb the build up of static electricity. Wrist straps or esd shoes are commonly used as means to drain the static charges to ground from personnel who are handling ESD sensitive items.

ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard requires personnel to wear a wrist strap when handling ESD sensitive items in a seated position. This is due to the reason that most of the time, the shoes of the sitting person does not come into contact with the ESD flooring.

As the person moves around while working, the use of wrist strap becomes inconvenient. Under this condition, esd shoes become the substitute to drain the build up of static charges on the human body.

Over the years, some organizations start to look for ways to simplify their processes.
Messy wirings, workers are often caught not wearing wrist strap during the audits and attempts to make the ESD control program more cost effective are some of the reasons behind why esd shoes are now starting to get attention from ESD practitioners in most organizations as the main defense to ground personnel either in sitting or standing position.

The ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard allows organization to tailor the ESD requirement as long as rationale and technical justification are documented in the ESD Control program plan.

Some organizations have successfully adopted esd shoes as their primary personnel grounding method. Whether there is a similar plan to do so to meet the company needs, it is recommended that evaluation is done to verify the effectiveness of esd shoes as the main defense to ground personnel.

Do you know what is required to allow you to have and run an effective ESD Control Program in your organization?
ESD Control Program Management has started to manifest its role in the electronic industries when the ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard was first developed way back in April-1999 by the ESD Association. As of today, there are about 100 over facilities around the world already being certified against the ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard, and that includes a high tech industry like Dongguan Semiconductor Wafer fabrication plant in China.

Here are the recommended 7 Effective ESD Control Program Management tips that would help you to run a successful ESD Control program in your organization.

1] Process owner: A process owner either an ESD Control Program Manager or an ESD Coordinator is required to develop, document and verify the effectiveness of the ESD Control program. Without a process owner is just like a ship without a captain.

2] Team work: The success of the ESD Control program is reliant on the teamwork rendered by the team members of different backgrounds or disciplines. Organizations may choose to set up an ESD Steering Committee or a group of ESD auditors.

3] Support from Top Management: It is extremely important to have a full support from the Top Management when running and managing the ESD Control program in your organization. For example when the Top Management follows the preset ESD rules of the organization, this would certainly set a good example for the rest of the employees to follow.

4] Auditing: When audits on ESD compliance are done on regular basis, it will help to curb the non compliance occurring inside the organization. Employees are regularly feedback on the non compliance and in doing so the awareness on ESD among the employees improves.

5] Continuous improvement: Continual improvement should be practiced after analyzing the data from the audits done. Organizations must continuously seek way to prevent recurrence of the non compliance. Prevention and detection methods should be employed whenever possible.

6] ESD awareness: Employees must be made aware of the ESD controls set up by the process owner through both avenues, i.e. training and communication programs. Employees must be trained before they start handling the ESD sensitive devices and continuously being trained periodically. Periodic communication done with the employees would also constantly remind the employees of the importance of following the ESD controls.

7] Laced with ISO 9000 framework: Apart from ensuring your ESD Control program complies with the ANSI/ESD S20.20 guidelines, the program would be further strengthened when it is laced with the ISO 9000 framework. Many things which involve other disciplines would be taken care of. For example: materials supplied by the suppliers would need to be evaluated by the process owner before they are used in the organization.

These 7 tips would give some insights on how to further improve your current ESD Control program in your organization which is of extreme importance to protect the ESD sensitive devices from being damaged by electrostatic discharge.

Soldering iron is basically a hand tool with a heatable tip and used to solder two materials together.
Soldering irons are widely used in Electronic industries that produce Printed Circuit Board assemblies or by anyone who needs to do soldering.

Soldering iron is typically electrically powered and comes as a complete soldering station with a variety of features such as
• soldering iron temperature can be set and controlled or locked to prevent unintentional changes
• digital display to indicate the soldering iron tip temperature
and with an iron holder.

Some soldering station requires calibration and some does not require calibration as the latter is self calibrating the temperature of the soldering iron tip.

When it is not managed properly, soldering iron can be a silent killer. ESD sensitive devices are damaged without anyone knowing it.
Ungrounded soldering iron tip could damage the ESD sensitive devices by the harmful leakage current flowing to the tip.

An ESD safe soldering iron station is basically a soldering station that is provided with a housing, an iron handler or a cord that is made of anti static material.
The choice whether to own an ESD safe soldering station is depending on the sensitivity of the device being handled at the work area.

The ESD safe soldering station is generally more expensive and is good to have but what is more important is to get hold of a grounded soldering iron.
A very simple way to confirm the soldering iron tip is grounded is by using a multimeter.
A new soldering iron should have the tip to ground resistance that less than 2 ohm, however this resistance would increase with use and it should be less than 20 ohm.

A more practical device to confirm the connection of the soldering iron tip to ground is by using a soldering iron tester. This soldering iron tester does not only allow the checking of iron tip to ground resistance, it also allows the measurement of the soldering iron tip temperature and iron tip to ground potential.
It is recommended to check these parameters periodically as to ensure the equipment is operating properly.

ANSI/ESD S20.20 is a standard that provides guidelines to electronic industries that manufacture, assemble, test and package or otherwise handle the electrical and electronic parts, assemblies and equipment on how to protect their ESD sensitive items from being damaged by electrostatic discharge (ESD).

Somewhere in March 2007, ESD Association has released ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 for industries reference and use at ESD Association.

What is new in ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007?
• ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 standard spells out the applicability of the Standard to electronic industries that handles ESD sensitive items which are susceptible to ESD damage of less than 100 Volts HBM with the use of tighter control limit and additional ESD controls.
• Organizations are required to appoint a process owner (ESD Control Program Manager or coordinator) to verify the compliance of the ESD control program to the Standard.
• The technical requirement limits with the source of Standard references are displayed in each ESD Control program plan Technical Requirements section for Grounding/Bonding system, Personnel Grounding and Protected Area. This simplifies the user comprehension of the Technical requirements mentioned.

What ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 standard is missing?
• ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 does not provide additional guidance as what ANSI/ESD S20.20-1999 version did. In this guidance, a wider overview on each section is provided to the user.
• The equipment portion that includes the AC powered tools, battery powered, pneumatic hand tools and automatic handlers are omitted from ESD Control program plan Technical Requirement section and are included as additional process considerations.

As a whole ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 Standard simplifies user understanding, however the good sides of previous Standard ANSI/ESD S20.20-1999 should not be forgotten.

ANSI/ESD S20.20-1999 and ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 will both be available to download until the end of 2008 at ESD Association.

It is recommended for any user to view both ANSI/ESD S20.20 standards for better comprehension before setting up an ESD Control program for your organization.

There are a few types of wrist strap available in the market place.
As wrist straps are the focal element in an ESD Control, therefore it is important to buy a correct wrist strap before use.

When we think about a wrist strap, we always think of a wrist strap band and its cord.
The band can either be made of fabric, which is elastic and adjustable or made of metal.
You can get a wrist strap grounding cord of different length, e.g. 4ft or 6ft.

A wrist strap is used to drain any static charges, which are built up within a person’s body. The wrist strap won’t work alone. It always teams up with a wrist strap outlet or wrist strap monitor to function completely.

The wrist strap grounding cord may contain a single conductor or dual conductors.
There is a restriction when a user teams it up with a wrist strap monitor.

A resistance wrist strap monitor only works well with a dual conductor wrist strap.
Here is an example on how the dual conductor wrist strap works on a 3M725 monitor: 3M725 wrist strap monitor performs a resistance measurement by applying an electrical current of less than 1 microAmp. The path for the current is through one conductor of the wrist strap grounding cord that contains a current-limiting resistor, through one side of the wrist band, through the skin of the wearer under the band, through the second side of the wrist band, through the second conductor of the wrist strap grounding cord that contains a current-limiting resistor and finally back to the monitor.

The benefit of using a wrist strap monitor is that it tells the user through an audible alarm and a visual red light indicator when a user is not properly grounded.

Lately a wireless wrist strap appears in the market. This wireless wrist strap does not utilize a grounding cord. It works based on corona discharge mechanism.

To know whether a wrist strap functions as designed, it is always encouraged to verify the effectiveness of the wrist strap before use.
One way is to use a Charge Plate monitor with a graphical recording device to check the body voltage of a person after he wears the wrist strap. At almost zero voltage would indicate the wrist strap functions well and a high voltage would indicate it does not function as intended.

Static problems are always there to keep the engineers busy. There is no way for the Management to push static controls aside in most of the electronic industries.

Static controls are required starting right from the beginning from where the Semiconductor chips are fabricated in the wafer processing plants to where they are assembled in the Semiconductor assembly plants and used to produce printed circuit board assembly in the Printed Circuit assembly plants and to a point where they are finally used in a complete electronic product like printers, handphones, computers etc.

There is always a need to have some knowledge on static electricity and electrostatic discharge (ESD) when setting up a company static control program.

Any site ESD coordinator or engineer who is assigned to carry out the task of setting up the static control program for his company needs to be trained on ESD.

The question is where to find information on the availability of the required ESD training.

ESD training is commonly available either in a class form organized by an external training resource or through the online e-learning.

A class ESD training allows participants to ask questions, share knowledge and build a network among the participants.

When local class training is not available or cannot be reached due to some reasons, there is always an alternative for the site ESD coordinator to be trained on ESD.

The cheaper ways are going for the online ESD e-learning.

There are various sites that produce free ESD information.

Some of them are:
ESD Association
Electrostatics.net
Learnesd.com

Other alternatives include getting assistance and guidance from your Corporate ESD expert or from other site ESD coordinators if there is any.

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.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Experiencing static electricity shock is common especially in the winter time when the air is dry. Examples of static electricity shock include getting zapped when touching a metal door knob and getting shock when kissing your loved ones.

Static electricity builds up when two materials come into contact and then separate. In our home, static electricity builds up on our body when we walk across the carpet or the floor tiles. Static electricity shock occurs when the accumulation of static charge discharges from our body to another material which is conductive in nature. This event is also called Electrostatic discharge (ESD). We usually get the feeling of static electricity shock when there is a minimum of 3000 volts of static electricity. There are many recommended ways where we can eliminate static electricity build up and static electricity shock in our home. 

• Use anti static carpet at home. This anti static carpet prevents or minimises the build up of static electricity.
• Use metal key chain when touching the metal door knob. This is allowing discharge of static charges from the key and not from your hands/fingers.
• Wear gloves e.g. rubber gloves when touching the metal door knob to prevent the discharge of static charges from our body to the door knob.
• Use humidifier to moisturise the air in our home.  Air is drier in the winter due to the use of heater inside the home.
• Spray anti static solution onto the carpet/floor tiles to prevent static electricity builds up.
• Wear leather shoes or anti static shoes.
• Discharge static electricity on our body by using grounding strap. Connect the anti static grounding strap to the exposed metal part of your computer which is connected to the power receptacle with the computer in power off state.
• Wear cotton type of clothing.
• Use fabric softener in laundry.
• Use hand lotion or body moisturiser.