ESD Current Measurement Using the Near Mangetic Field

In order to evaluate the toughness of automotive ECU's to electrostatic discharge, a conventional method where electrostatic discharge pulse is applied to connector parts on a printed circuit board is commonly used.

But quantitative re-designing principles to improve the static electricity tolerance have not been made clear that completely utilizes the test data shown below till now, because propagation mechanism of static electricity on a circuit board is not clear.

This paper describes the ESD current measurement technique which detects the near magnetic field generated by ESD currents. We developed to measure the ESD currents using the new loop antenna on a circuit board. The ESD current, was generated with the static electricity applied to a model circuit pattern in conformity with IEC and ISO standard and measured using the antenna. Also it was able to visualize how static electricity energy would propagate through the circuit board. We concluded that ESD current measurement by near magnetic field using small shielded loop antenna was effective