ESD Compliance – Ground Zero Electrostatics Blog

04 Aug

Managing Static and ESD in Call Centers

Thanks to movies and TV, no matter how old you are, you’ve probably seen the old switchboards – whether it’s on Agent Carter or reruns of the Andy Griffith Show – and computers that barely fit inside a room – like in The Imitation Game or the TV show Manhattan.

Nowadays, of course, we carry the switchboard and the computer in a handy-dandy pocket device.

Likewise with emergency services. When we call 9-11, we expect a prompt response, and the person on the other end of the line assures us that police, fire, or ambulance are already in route as they continue to gather our information.

Computers help planes land, monitor traffic on the freeways, and even park your car for you.

But for all the advances in technology, there have been setbacks as well.

In the old days, phone and computer systems were built “solid-state.” Everything was confined within one unit and was protected from outside forces. Internally, they were defended from ElectroStatic Discharge (ESD) by microcircuit gate protectors.

Unfortunately, these gate protectors, while highly effective, tended to slow down the machines they were protecting – kind of like how some companies’ virus protection forces their machines to crawl.

As technology progressed, emergency services, military bases, and flight control centers started abandoning these more stringent preventative measures, in favor of speed.

The end result being, while these computers and call centers are protected in buildings made to withstand hurricanes, earthquakes and power outages, they can be disabled or even rendered completely useless by the tiniest static shock.

Which is why the proper ESD protection and protocols are so important in these mission critical locations.

Another factor to consider is that these facilities are typically open 24-hours a day and have hundreds of people pass through them on a regular basis. Some of them are trained and properly equipped with ESD shoes, heel grounders and even personal wrist straps, but certainly not all of them.

And when there’s a crisis and everyone needs to scramble to get the problem solved, the first thing to go is proper ESD procedures.

The answer is to make these facilities as static proof (or charge proof) as possible.

Like your skin (the largest organ in the human body), flooring is the largest and most vulnerable area for ESD buildup and discharge, if it’s not handled properly.

There are many options for ESD flooring, as we’ve discussed in prior posts, but in this instance, there are really only one option: carbon-fiber laced carpet.

The first thing you should know is that not all ESD carpet is created equal. Some companies promote and sell an ESD carpeting that is treated with a chemical to reduce static that disintegrates over time and must be reapplied.

Avoid these – you don’t want your static protection to be subject to a random timetable. Again, these facilities are always open. You’ll want to invest in a carpet whose static-prevention comes from the permanent physical composition of the materials.

For the same reason, you’ll want to invest in an ESD carpeting that is certified by ANSI/ESDA standards and reduces static regardless of the humidity levels or footwear worn by the personnel.

As an added bonus look for ESD carpet that is low maintenance, crush resistant, able to handle heavy foot traffic and comes with a lifetime warranty.

Contact us today for more information or to talk about your ESD flooring options. We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.

28 Jul

5 Reasons Why Static Programs Fail

On May 6, 1937, the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed, killing 36 people in front of national news cameras and effectively ending the Zeppelin flying experiment.

The Hindenburg was larger than 4 Goodyear blimps combined, or about as long as 2/3 the height of the Empire State Building.

It was rainy that day, and the mooring ropes dragged along the ground as the airship came down to dock in Manchester Township. The prevailing theory is that the wet dragging ropes generated a static charge that traveled up them onto the ship.

There the charge ignited the Hydrogen fuel and… boom. Once considered the future of air travel, flying airships would not be utilized, either commercially or for military use until the end of World War II.

All caused by a single spark.

Much like the Hindenburg disaster, your company’s program to control electrostatic discharge (ESD) can be toppled with a few small errors that blossom into larger problems if they aren’t properly accounted and planned for.

So today, let’s look at the 5 common reasons why your static control programs could fail.

Sure! We have ESD Protocols, Right?

Most companies that deal with sensitive electronics and circuit boards also require that their vendors, third party suppliers, and subcontractors have an ESD program in place. Often even before signing a contract, an engineer is sent in to audit the ESD practices. And from time to time they will do spot-checks to verify that those practices are still in place.

Some companies, in an effort to hold on to their contract or cut expenses, will simply throw together a minimum program that can be audited. It’s done as inexpensively as possible and often doesn’t have any true protocols – training, preventative maintenance, and enforcement fall by the wayside.

You’d never do that, right? Well, except…

This is Gonna Cost How Much?

Top management are always looking at ways to work more economically. Unfortunately, if they are not properly briefed on the importance of proper ESD protection protocols, they may see many aspects of the ESD program as expensive and possibly unnecessary.

This isn’t their fault, they just need to be better educated. Which may be your job. The fact is, the expense for good, well-developed ESD protection protocols is dwarfed by the cost to replace or repair non-functioning components, not to mention the company’s reputation.

Excellent ESD companies are led from the top down, with company leadership not only showing financial support for ESD preventative programs, but also making time to attend training themselves, praise persons and departments with the best implementation, and allocate time and funds for ongoing training and improvement of existing programs.

Otherwise, you might end up in a pinch…

Here’s a Band-Aid for that Severed Limb!

You might have heard the old saw, ‘if there’s no time to do it right the first time, how are you going to find time to fix it later?’

Unfortunately, many companies appear to follow a different maxim – there’ll always be time to do it over.

Like our last reason, the problem is often financial. Momentary solutions that can be quickly applied to fix individual problems becomes the norm, despite the fact that the long term expense is much higher.

The best, most cost-effective solutions are applied right the first time and “solve” lots of problems by the fact that they prevent so many of them for happening. Then you don’t get into a situation where you’re spending a lot more to fix what could have been an easily avoided minor problem, but is now mission critical.

But that’s not going to help unless…

Training? We Don’t Need no Stinking Training!

Proper ESD prevention is a team effort, but many companies underestimate the size of the team involved. As mentioned before, upper level management should take an interest in training, and in fact, every employee should be given at least a rudimentary class or video in how to follow the company’s practices.

It’s not enough to train the engineers of you haven’t informed the janitorial staff that cleans their sensitive work areas after they leave for the day how to properly do so.

Secretaries, interns, sales people – everyone who has the potential to walk into or affect an Electrostatic Protection Area (EPA) needs to know how to properly behave to minimize risk.

And finally…

We Only Use the Best – the Best We Can Afford, That Is.

Yes, it keeps coming back to price. But price should not be the only factor in deciding who to buy your ESD supplies from. Not all companies are created equally. Not all ESD products are held to the highest standard.

You want to find a vendor that can supply your ESD needs who can guarantee all of their products are properly tested, meet or exceed industry standards, and have the certification to prove it.

Always be sure to properly vet your chosen vendor, making sure they meet these requirements and be willing to ask for clients you can speak to and recommendations you can verify. If they’re reputable, they’ll be more than willing to have you check them out with their existing happy clients.

ESD prevention is no casual task. Your company may not have the risk of ending 36 lives, but putting best practices into place can certainly save jobs, computers and your clients.

We’d love to be the experts you can count on for your full service, seamless ESD solutions. For more information or advice on your specific ESD prevention needs – or any other ESD questions, please contact us today.

07 Jul

Is Bare Concrete Really the Best “Anti-Static” Flooring?

There used to be an old wives’ tale that standing on bare concrete for too long caused varicose and spider veins. In the 60’s, that idea was largely supplanted by the hippie movement that believed standing shoeless on bare concrete allowed the body to become more grounded.

Unfortunately, it seems that the once-held hippie belief has permeated into the world of electrostatic discharge (ESD) prevention. But nothing could be further from the truth. Because while bare, unsealed concrete floors that are allowed to ‘breathe’ have anti-static tendencies, they are definitely NOT grounded.

Nothing to Cling To

While the lower expense of a bare concrete floor makes it appear like a desirable remedy, there are several reasons it is not classified as a true ESD flooring solution.

First there’s that word – tendencies. Bare concrete floors tend to be anti-static, but they are not reliably so. That’s because anti-static characteristics are not inherent in concrete like they are in a carbon-filled material or a poured ESD epoxy.

To further complicate the issue, the measure of how anti-static concrete is, is dependent on many variables – the most significant of which is its permeability to moisture. If you’ve explored our website at all, that should immediately raise a red flag. In an earlier post, we talked about why moisture is the #1 enemy to your ESD flooring.

A Shift in Standards

If that doesn’t scare you away, we discussed in this post about how anti-static is not an adequate measure for ESD flooring. To summarize, the term “anti-static” refers to a material that resists generating a charge. And bare, sealed concrete does do that – most of the time. But over the past 30 years or so, ANSI and the ESD Association made the effort to remove the term from their professional industry standards because it was so overused and misunderstood.

Those standards are discussed in this post.

And for good measure, we discuss in another post the dangers of cutting corners to save money when building your ESD Protection Area (EPA). Some up front expenses are definitely worth the long-term benefits.

Fully Charged

So, let’s assume that the concrete floor you’ve just installed is as anti-static as it can get. You can walk across it to any other part of the room and there will be no static buildup, aka triboelectric effect.

But what happens when the CEO comes down to inspect the area, and as he’s walked from his office to the EPA area, he’s built up a static charge. It’s on his body, on his clothes; we know that even the slightest movement in a conductive area builds a charge that can damage sensitive electronics.

When he hits that concrete floor, the charge doesn’t just disappear. It stays with him. Because while concrete has the tendency to avoid building up a static charge, it does nothing to dissipate an existing charge. And this is the biggest problem with the use of concrete as an ESD floor. It cannot act as a ground.

The CEO touches a circuit board, it gets the electrostatic discharge, ruining it – and he blames you. And then you have to install a true ESD floor anyways. Why not just do it right the first time?

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider. Contact us today for more information.

29 Jun

Custom Matting: A Ground Zero Specialty

If you’ve ever worked with an X-Acto Knife or a box cutter, you know there are some dangers, just as there are with any knife. Remember, pay attention to what you’re doing! Never use a dull blade! Cut away from your body!

And of course, wear cut resistant gloves. Yes, we know you’re a man, and men don’t need certain protections… Okay, so both genders have their issues, but this one rule is the one we most often neglect – and that neglect leads to injuries.

You’re being careful, cutting along, everything’s going smoothly and SLICE!

Yes, that’s right, you’ve just sliced open your finger, there’s blood everywhere – you have to go to the emergency room and get stitches.

It kind of ruins your day.

OSHA reports that nearly 40 percent of all injuries attributed to manual workshop tools in the US involve knives with retractable blades.

And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 250,000 serious hand, finger and wrist laceration occur annually in the private industry.

So that scenario we described above? It’s far more common than you might think. And, in the interest of your safety and our bottom line, we took action.

A Cut Above

So what did Ground Zero do to help insure your workplace safety?

In an earlier post, we talked about ESD mats – what they are and how they work, but today we’d like to get… a little personal, if that’s okay with you.

Most table and bench mats are built with either two or three layers. The top layer is resistant to chemicals, solder and flux, making it usable and easy to clean. The bottom layer is either a durable anti-skid surface and/or an adhesive backing, both to ensure safety on the work area.

Three-layer mats have the added bonus of a conductive scrim layered in the center that can coordinate with your personal wrist-strap constant monitors.

As you can imagine, all of these layers make the mats a little thicker than cardboard or just a vinyl mat. And, as you know, when cutting with an X-Acto knife or box cutter, the thicker the material you’re trying to cut is, the more prone the blade is to slipping, leading to that ER visit.

So to help promote the safety of our customers’ workplaces, we decided to offer custom cut matting.

That’s right, any of the mats we sell can be custom cut to your specifications (with a small margin of +/-1/8^th of an inch). Plus, each and every custom cut mat comes with an ISO certification showing it has been tested and met the latest professional standards.

So which would you prefer, a trip to the emergency room, or the ability to get to work on with your new ESD mat right out of the box – with all of your fingers intact?

Oh, and finally: a little safety advice, whether you want it or not. When using a knife or blade of any sort, stay sharp! Follow all of those rules we mentioned above, ‘cause we all know a lot of us do ignore them and they were created for our safety.

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider; contact us today for more information

25 May

What Are the Standards for Electrostatic Protection?

So, you’ve just been tasked with building or designing your first Electrostatic Protection Area (EPA). You’ve started doing your research, but there are so many choices, from so many different companies. Suppliers, manufacturers, third party providers… If only there was some established standard for judging the efficacy and reliability of all those pieces and parts.

Well, you’re in luck! In 2007, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in cooperation with ElectroStatic Discharge Association (ESDA) released a unified set of standards for the design, implementation and maintenance of ElectroStatic Discharge control programs.

In the midst of World War I, five engineering organizations recognized the need to develop standards that could eliminate confusion and could be adhered to across all disciplines, without regard to politics, profits or personal preferences. These groups reached out to the U.S. Departments of War, Navy, and Commerce to form an impartial third party non-profit organization, then known as the American Engineering Standards Committee.

Following the war, the organization spent the next 20 years establishing several safety protocols still observed today, like eye protection, hard hat standards and in-house electrical safety while at the same time reaching out to other similarly tasked international organizations.

When the United States entered World War II, the organization, which would eventually come to be known as ANSI, helped to accelerate the war effort and productivity, created more effective quality control measures, as well as helping to advance photography, radio, and even the development of Velcro.

In 1970’s, ANSI established a public review process and began the herculean effort of moving the United States to the metric system. While the general public never really connected with the metric system, the effort did bring ANSI to the forefront of private sector companies who discovered standardization was a way to stay more competitive in an increasingly global economy.

With the advancement of personal computers in the late 70’s and early 80’s, engineers at several companies recognized a need for more understanding of electrostatic discharge and its prevention. They formed the ESD Association, a non-profit, voluntary professional organization that for almost 35 years has sponsored educational programs and developed standards to help eliminate losses due to electrostatic discharges.

Together, leaning on the historical experience of both military and several commercial organizations, ANSI and ESDA developed the definitive standard for ESD protection, the very cleverly named ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007.

Covering about every conceivable area of ElectroStatic Discharge, the ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 utilizes both the human body model and the machine model to provide a broad set of guidelines for ESD protection.

The Human Body Model is the military standard that defines and rates the vulnerability of an electronic device to the ESD generated by a human being touching it. The Machine Model works similarly, except it rates the vulnerability of a device receiving a machine discharge into ground. It was originally developed by car manufacturers as their plants moved to more mechanized production technology. The Human Body Model is about 10 times more sensitive than the Machine Model.

There is a lot to explore in the ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 guidelines, but for the purpose of this primer, the document highlights 3 fundamental ESD control principles:

All conductors should be grounded. This includes the personnel and the surfaces they are working on. We recommend, at a minimum, personal grounding wrist straps, ESD table or bench mats, and a common ground cord.
Necessary non-conductors – certain circuit board materials, device packaging, etc. – cannot lose their electrostatic charge by being grounded and appropriate precautions must be implemented.
Static protective materials, such as ESD shielding bags or ESD totes and boxes must be utilized when transporting sensitive electronics outside a properly prepared EPA.

There are slightly less stringent standards that apply to floors and bench mats, but ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 is the highest and most comprehensive guideline so far. So when you’re shopping for the parts needed to establish your EPA area, always look for companies that maintain that standard in their products and services.

We would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider; contact us today for more information.

27 Apr

Why Moisture is the #1 Enemy to Your ESD Flooring

It’s hard to walk down a sidewalk these days without seeing a crack in the pavement. Some of these have obvious reasons, like strong tree roots pushing them up, while others seem to appear out of nowhere.

When concrete is initially poured on a flat surface, to create a floor or sidewalk, it is left for a day or more, depending on the location, to cure. Curing is the process by which the concrete is protected from evaporation until it hardens.

The wetter and cooler concrete is while it’s curing, the stronger and less permeable it is.

I know what you’re thinking… Wait. Why does this matter to ESD flooring? The short answer is more than you know.

A Concrete Problem

Because of the unique nature of the concrete curing, moisture is captured within the concrete. Again, this helps the concrete stay stronger and last longer. But it has an unfortunate side effect.

You see, concrete cracks when the moisture inside it evaporates faster than it can draw replacement moisture from the ground under it.

You may have noticed that a bare concrete floor is unusually cooler than its surroundings. There’s even the old wives tale about walking on bare concrete causing arthritis flare-ups.

But concrete doesn’t just capture moisture during curing. After hardening, it also transmits the moisture and the temperature of the ground below it.

All of this leads to the number one reason electrostatic discharge (ESD) preventative flooring fails: moisture permeation.

Flooring Failure

When too much moisture moves through the concrete, it results in a high alkalinity in the concrete. The higher pH levels react to the bonding agent, causing the adhesive in many instances to fail. And if that failure isn’t discovered, could even lead to mold between the concrete and the flooring.

A properly constructed system built recently should include a vapor barrier – a plastic shield that lessens the moisture transference of the concrete flooring. But older buildings may not include this and preventative measures should be taken.

The best and most economical solution is to install resilient flooring to the concrete base before laying down the adhesive backed ESD flooring. Resilient flooring is an organic floor surfacing material in sheet or tile form: rubber, vinyl, cork, or linoleum are all viable options.

You can also apply a resin-based moisture barrier coating before laying down your ESD flooring tiles.

A more efficient method is to simply pour a static conductive water-based epoxy floor covering. This eliminates the need for an additional layer of ESD flooring as the epoxy itself provides the protection.

What you can’t do is nothing. Moisture-related floor covering failures are responsible for over $1 billion annually in damages.

Contact us today for more information; we would love to be your full service, seamless ESD solution provider.

18 Jun

We don't need no stinking wrist straps, do we?

Q: I have read the White Paper 1: A Case for Lowering Component Level HBM/MM ESD Specifications and Requirements and found the ESD Control Programs and Resulting Data (Chapter 1, Page 20-23) particularly interesting.

Assuming a production environment with ESD flooring, footwear (and clothing), by the time a person walks to a workstation and sits down, the voltage of this persons should not exceed 500V (or even 100V as seen in Figure 3). That would mean even a seated operator in this case would not need to wear wrist strap, that theory would be correct right? After sitting down and this person sits on a stool (feet off the floor) with resistance to floor < 1.0x10exp9ohms, any HBM risk would be further reduced wouldn’t it?

A: Hello ****. Nice try. Even if you have an ESD flooring system and even if you have ESD footwear and even if you have an ESD task chair with ESD casters or an ordinary task chair with an ESD chair cover (very effective as well), ESD smock on… you STILL have to wear the wrist strap when seated at an ESD workstation.

The only time, per ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 page 4, 8.2 Personnel Grounding, that personnel in the EPA (ESD Protected Area) should be without a wrist strap is when doing standing or walking about operations, and then two conditions must be met;
· “When the total resistance of the system (from the person, through the footwear and flooring to the grounding / Equipotential bonding system) is less than 3.5E7 Ω…”
· “When the total resistance of the system (from the person, through the footwear and flooring to the grounding / Equipotential bonding system) is greater than 3.5E7 Ω and less than 1.0E9 Ω and the BVG is less than 100 v per 97.2…”

This is what is said about seated personnel:

“When personnel are seated at ESD protective workstations, they shall be connected to the grounding / Equipotential bonding system via a wrist strap system.”

Hope this helps. I guess you could say redundancy is good in the realm of ESD. It’s the weak link in the chain that will cause an ESD event. If someone lifts their ESD footwear from the ESD flooring system while seated, they can tribocharge to above 100 volts. It takes only 0.3 seconds of charge time to exceed 20.20 requirements. If personnel is seated and getting up to go to break, it seems best to stand up, remove the wrist strap from the wrist, carefully set it down and walk away from the ESD workstation. Worst case is to take the wrist strap off while still seated, set it down, put your hand on the ESD workstation and near ESDS devices, then stand up out of the task chair before leaving the work station. Under proper conditions and with good bench mats, clean ESD floors, ESD task chairs, etc. in place, no ESD event. The problem with ESD events is that we cannot see, hear, feel them.

The only alternative to not wearing a wrist strap while seated may be the used of a smock with a grounding coil cord attached to it. You can see the footnotes on the 20.20 document at the bottom of page 4 for further details.

We adhere to and meet or exceed requirements put forth in ANSI/ESD S20.20-2007 or IEC 61340-5-1, which assumes a target HBM of 100 volts and less.

05 Dec

ESD Compliance: Test the ESD Devices, and test the testers

Q: How does a wrist bandcum footwear ground tester differ from the work station monitor? Can we not use only the work station monitor when it can monitor the worthiness of wrist strap even? And, Can we not check the worthiness of a wrist strap with a normal multimeter

A: I think that I understand your question here. One way or another, a company needs to say what they are going to do in terms of ESD compliance. They need to then do what they say they will do and document it. They need to test the ESD devices. They then need to test the testers. And they need to show records of such in a pass/fail document and to prove that they are committed to quality and do not accept anything into the environment than will lead to a failure.

A wrist strap/footwear tester is proven and tested. It is convenient to monitor and record the compliance to a whole shift of people in a given EPA. But what if someone tests their wrist strap that morning and it fails at 10:25 that morning. They won’t know it failed until later that day.

The advantage of the constant monitor is that it not only alarms the moment it fails but it also forces the user to keep it on (wrist strap) while seated at the ESD workstation. That’s fine. But you need to test the testers periodically. And to document those tests. I hope I understood your question and answered it accordingly.

I suppose you could check the worthiness of a wrist strap with a normal multimeter. I have a device that measures the connection from a connected 4mm, 7mm, or 10mm snap, through the coil cord and 1M Ω resistor, and two conductive cylinders that measure a stretched out wrist strap. With it, I can measure the cuff only, the cuff and cord, or the cord only. It cost me (us) a small fortune. I have a Fluke 123 Industrial Scopemeter and a Fluke 77. They are great meters, up to about 40M Ω or 4.0E7. If you have wrist straps that are conductive enough, then great. Good luck. You may need a Megohmmer.