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.