Study of picosecond rise time in human-generated ESD

Abstract

Measurements of human-generated electrostatic discharge (ESD) were conducted during the Canadian winter under low humidity conditions. These measurements indicate the existence of ESD impulses with rise times shorter than 100 ps and peak current amplitude in excess of 50 A. The measuring system consisted of a current sensor with a calibrated bandwidth of 5 GHz and a TEK 7250 digitizer with numerically corrected bandwidth of 10 GHz. A bare hand, a blunt object (screwdriver), a sharp object (scriber), and a car key were used during the test.<>