Handling ESD

[transistor495]

How an Electrostatic Sensitive Device should be handled in a simple way? I mean wrapping hand with some kind of materials or what about keeping them. Can I keep them inside a plastic container?

What percent of danger level is there for improper handling?

Can anybody give me an example of such a situation?

 

[dknguyen]

Sealed Anti-static bags and a wrist strap.

 

[crutschow]

The idea is to keep everything around the device at the same potential. Thus in a lab/production environment they use anti-static bench pads and wrist-straps connected to a common (typically earth ground) point. All containers and bags should also be of an anti-static (conductive) design. Normal plastic materials (bags and containers) are bad since they can develop a high electro-static charge.

You can't assign a percent of danger, but all it takes is one small electrostatic discharge (one you wouldn't even feel) to kill many MOS devices (which normally take only a few tens of volts to puncture the gate dielectric). For example, walking across a carpeted floor and touching a sensitive device would likely zap it.

You must always ground yourself and the device before touching it. A typical procedure would be to ground yourself with a connected wrist strap, then pick up the electro-static bag with the sensitive part inside. That puts you and the part at the same potential so it's now safe to open the bag an remove the part. Wherever you place or install the part should also be grounded to the same potential.

Typically all connections to earth ground are made through a 1 megohm resistor for safety reasons.

 

[bountyhunter]

Avoid walking on carpeting. That's the biggest contributor. Avoid wearing insulating shoes like rubber soled sneakers.

 

[Hero999]

Since it's the wet season you don't have to worry about ESD much at the moment.

In the dry season, it's more or a problem, depending on how dry it gets.

Here in the UK, there's just one long wet season, so ESD it not much of a problem

 

[transistor495]

Hey thanks very much guys for great contribution especially to crutschow for his detailed wonderful reply.

I think I should keep'em on air

 

[bountyhunter]

But always bear in mind...... ESD failure is what we in the semiconductor business always used as a last resort to explain away failures when we have no clue why they blew up.