ESD Testing

What is ESD testing?

Electric Static Discharge (ESD) is one of the most common types of immunity tests. Static can be built up within a product. Most people are familiar with the process if they’ve ever walked across a carpet and touched something metal like a doorknob, for example.

How is ESD created?

The shock is ESD. It is created when an arc is created between the door know and your body due to a spark induced by a voltage differential of several kilovolts between your finger and the door.
ESD Immunity testing is comprised of testing any product area that could come in contact with a human being and thus potentially be subjected to electrostatic discharges.

The ESD testing process

One of the electromagnetic compatibility tests (EMC) includes ESD testing. ESD testing simulates multiple electrostatic impacts that may be encountered by devices during their lifecycle. An electrostatic discharge evaluation identifies when the device can absorb or deflect the effects of the ESD.

What types of ESD are there

ESD takes on many different forms. However, since human beings are the most common variable, we utilize the Human Body Approach as the most popular ESD test. The test simulates the effect of a person discharging electrical energy on an electronic component.

Testing Partners utilizes two ESD research methods. The first is the air approach, and the second is the contact approach. The ESD testing of the air method uses a such as an ESD pistol to transmit ESD through the air to the test device. Several considerations can affect research for ESD. These involve humidity, the velocity, and the temperature of the discharge object against the test system. In low temperature and low humidity conditions, ESD is more frequent.
The contact method directly applies ESD to the device tested.

We test in a variety of environmental conditions

We simulate a multitude of environments and change variables such as humidity and temperature to get the most accurate results when testing ESD. This research procedure requires being in close contact with the system to be evaluated by an ESD generator. This is essential as ESD interaction rarely occurs spontaneously.

An ESD evaluation ensures that the device performs properly according to the specifications of the test and the operating procedures of the manufacturer. Generally, ESD monitoring is part of a broader EMC evaluation schedule for compliance with product approval.