Matthew T. Thomas and Michael G. Pecht
University of Maryland, College Park, USA
For more information about this article and related research, please contact Prof. Michael Pecht.
Abstract:
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) remains a reliability threat in high-reliability electronics manufacturing despite industry adoption of ESD standards and control programs. ESD standards provide baseline requirements through defined grounded electrostatic protected workspaces, compliance verification, and device qualification; however, they are deterministic and do not quantify ESD risk. Prior research demonstrates that ESD-induced failures occur within fully compliant protected areas, that human-induced body voltage follows statistical distributions influenced by task and environment, and that device failure due to ESD exposure occurs over a range of voltage levels rather than at fixed thresholds. This reviews and states the gaps in ESD physics, device reliability, in situ human body voltage measurements, and standards limitations, with a focus on human reliability modeling. The review contends that transitioning from compliance-based ESD control towards probabilistic, data-driven risk modeling integrating human reliability analysis, empirical measurements, environmental variability, and device susceptibility distributions, offers a path to improved electronics reliability.
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