A study of the effects on human electrostatic discharge current waveform verification

The electrostatic discharge sensitivity testing of devices and microcircuits is important according to their susceptibility to damage by exposure to a defined human electrostatic discharge (ESD). The human ESD simulator is evaluated to guarantee that it can provide the current waveform required for the standard. It is confirmed that inconsistent human ESD test results are provided from different ESD simulators built in accordance with the standard specifications. It is necessary to study the effects on human ESD current waveform verification to improve the accuracy and consistency of verification results. However, the current waveform verification results are influenced by equipment performance and parasitic parameters. The human ESD simulator equivalent circuit is introduced to analyze how the current waveform is affected by digital oscilloscope performance and parasitic parameters caused by the current probe connection location. The experimental results show that the rise time of human ESD current waveform is influenced by the digital oscilloscope bandwidth and the current probe connected location, but the peak current and decay time are not changed significantly.