ESD Control Program plan requirements

ESD Control program plan basically is a living document which is used by an organization to verify the compliance of the Program against its ESD requirements.

ESD requirements for an organization can be established by referring to ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard. This ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard is applicable to all electronics industry such as Semiconductor Wafer processing fab, Semiconductor Assembly and Test, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) assembly, Disk drive, Flat Panel Display and any other industry which involve in producing or assembling ESD sensitive parts.

As the ESD Control program is established with the intention to protect the ESD sensitive parts from being damaged by Electrostatic discharge (ESD), therefore the most sensitive level of the ESD sensitive parts being handled in the plant must be addressed upfront in the ESD Control program plan.

The ESD sensitivity level of most electronic components can be known by inquiring the information from the Design department or from the Material Data Sheet of the part.

When this information is not available, the organization can set up his ESD control as per the ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard scope requirement to protect ESD sensitive part with ESD sensitivity level equal to or greater than 100 volts HBM.

More stringent ESD requirements are needed for protecting the more sensitive ESD parts.

Besides addressing the protection capability of the ESD Control program, the ESD Control program plan shall also address both the Administrative and Technical requirements that support its provision and protection capability for the most ESD sensitive part that the organization can safely handle.

The ESD Control program administrative requirements include:

• Training
• Compliance Verification

Training plan: Under the Training plan, the organization shall include both its initial and recurrent ESD awareness and prevention training program to all his employee who handle or otherwise come into contact with the ESD sensitive parts. Methodology of ESD training provision shall be defined along with the training frequency.
The organization also needs to define the method used to verify the comprehension of the trainee on the subject being trained and its training adequacy and the method of maintaining the training records.

Compliance verification: Under the Compliance verification plan, the organization is basically verifying the ESD compliance of the controls being set up in the ESD Control program plan. That includes verifying the Technical requirements compliance and other ESD control compliance. The former verification involves measurement monitoring and the latter usually is a non-measurement monitoring process.
The compliance verification activity shall be established and documented, including the technical elements to be verified, the verifying frequency and the measurement control limits, the methods and equipments used during the verification process.
The ESD compliance records shall then be maintained as evidence of conformity to the controls of the ESD control program plan.


The ESD Control program plan technical requirements basically include:
• Grounding/ Equipotential bonding system
• Personnel grounding
• ESD Protected area requirements
• Packaging systems
• Marking
• Equipment
• Handling

Verifying the Technical elements shall be done based on method spelled out in the standards referenced in the ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard.
Tailoring statement must be documented in the ESD control program plan when the method used by the organization differs from those in the standards.

The ESD Control program plan needs to be reviewed periodically to ensure the ESD sensitive parts being handled in the plant is safely protected from esd damage.

Understanding Static electricity and Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)

Static electricity is the imbalance of electrical charges which is generated when two materials are brought together and then separated. These imbalances of electrical charges are caused by electrons being stripped off the other material, causing the material that loses electrons becomes positively charged and the material that gains electrons becomes negatively charged. The process of where static electricity is generated is called Triboelectrification.

The polarity of charge on a material depends on the material type and its position in the Triboelectric Series.
When two materials are rubbed or come into contact and are separated, the material in the upper position in the Tribolelectric Series will become positively charged and that in the lower position in the Triboelectric Series becomes negatively charged.


The amount of static charges generated depends on several factors such as:
• Speed of motion
• Pressure applied from the motion
• Relative humidity of the ambient
• Surface area and surface roughness

Understanding static electricity and Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) is vital in combating the nuisance it caused in our daily lives whether at home, outside home or in our working areas. Static electricity and ESD pose greater danger particularly in working areas that deal with microelectronic devices which are sensitive towards ESD damage.

Common ESD experiences include static shock when touching the metal door knob, kid’s hair standing while passing through the slide in the playground and fire occurence at the gas pump station. Contrary to those ESD experiences encountered both at home and outside home, the ESD experience in the working area is totally different. Some ESD experiences in the working area may include high failure during final testing, low process yield or unexplained product return from customers.

All the ESD experiences happen are either due to accumulation of static electricity or the rapid discharge of the accumulated static electricity from the object of high electric potential to another object of lower electric potential. The discharge of static electricity between the two objects of different electric potential is called Electrostatic Discharge (ESD).

While we start to feel the presence of static electricity with at least 3000 volts, some electronic device such as Tunneling magneto –resistor (TMR) heads are susceptible to esd damage with a less than 10 volts Human Body Model (HBM) of static electricity.

The launch of ESD on campus program by ESD Association (ESDA) somewhere in Sept 2006 has caused ESD subject to gain more attention from universities around the globe. The ESD on campus program helps to produce graduates with ESD knowledge who are needed to support the growing number of electronics companies whether in semiconductor, disk drive or printed circuit assembly, around the world especially in the Far East region.

With that, it is explained why understanding Static Electricity and ESD is important in our daily lives.