Simulation of Electrostatic Discharge(ESD) Testing with XFdtd®
Gregory MossXFdtd Research Manager
This material is based upon work sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office ofScience, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, under Award Number DESC0017164.
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Disclaimer
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agencyof the United States Government. Neither the United States Government
nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty,
express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for theaccuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus,
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endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States
Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors
expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the UnitedStates Government or any agency thereof.
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Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.

Static Electricity and Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)Electrostatic Discharge Testing
ESD Testing Simulation with XFdtdConclusions© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Static Electricity
Causes:Contact / Triboelectric
Pressure / Piezoelectric
Temperature / Pyroelectric
Charge / Electrostatic Induction© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Triboelectric Charge

Source: [1]© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Triboelectric Charge
𝑞𝑞 = 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶
𝑞𝑞 – Charge (Coulombs)
𝐶𝐶 – Capacitance (Farads)
𝑉𝑉 – Voltage (Volts)
1
𝐸𝐸 = 𝐶𝐶𝑉𝑉 2
2
𝐸𝐸 – Energy (joules)

Source: [1]© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Electrostatic Discharge© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

ESD Cost“… in the electronics industry, losses associated with ESD are
estimated at between a half billion and five billion dollars annually.” In reality, total ESD cost is very
difficult to determine.
 Facts:
 Multiple Prototypes
 Warranty Claims
 Loss of Consumer Confidence
Reference: [2]© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

ESD TestingStandards:
 ANSI/ESD, IEC, JEDEC, MIL, etc.

Common Test Models: Human Body Model (HBM) Charged Device Model (CDM)
 Machine Model (MM)© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

HBM & CDM Models
HBM

CDM
Source: [3]Source: [4]© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

ESD Damage
Catastrophic

Latent

Upset© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

XFdtd ESD Simulation
Goals: Help engineers pinpoint locations in their designs at risk ofexperiencing dielectric breakdown during ESD testing.
 Help engineers pinpoint components at risk of damage during
ESD testing.
 Allow engineers to optimize their ESD mitigation designs prior
to hardware prototyping.
 Reduce product development costs and time to market.
 Improve product reliability and consumer confidence.
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New XFdtd Functionality
 ESD Waveforms

 HBM, CDM, MM, etc.

 Material Parameter Dielectric Strength Result Sensor

 Dielectric Breakdown Circuit Components

 Rated Voltage/Current© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

ESD Waveforms
 ESD waveforms can beimported using XFdtd’s
improved User Defined
Waveform feature.
 Waveform References:[5] – Cerri et al., 1996
[6] – Keenan and Rosi, 1991
[7] – Songlin et al., 2003
[8] – Yuan et al., 2006[9] – Wang et al., 2003[10] – Berghe and Zutter, 1998
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ESD Testing Electric Fields© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Dielectric Strength Defines the maximum
electric field a material canwithstand without
experiencing dielectricbreakdown and losing its
insulating properties.
 Materials with an infinite
dielectric strength will beignored by the Dielectric
Breakdown Sensor.

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Dielectric Breakdown Sensor
 Computational savings canbe obtained by reducing thesize of the sensor to thegeometry’s bounding box orto specific regions ofinterest.
 The default dielectricstrength of free space is set
to 3.0 MV/m corresponding
to air at sea level.

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Dielectric Breakdown Risk

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Rated Components
 Rated peak voltages andcurrents can be obtained froma circuit component’s data
sheet and entered into its
Circuit Component Definition.
 Infinite rated voltages andcurrents will be ignored by
XFdtd’s System Sensor.

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Exceeded Design Specs© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Optimize ESD Mitigation
 Once locations and components at risk of suffering ESD
damage are pinpointed, the ESD mitigation design can beoptimized:
 Increase distance between traces
 Reduce sharp angles and edges
 Use materials with higher dielectric strength Introduce ESD protection circuits and/or suppressors
 Improve shielding Use quality components with higher rated values© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

Conclusions
 ESD simulation does not replace hardware testing.
 ESD simulation does allow engineers to predict potential ESD
problems and optimize ESD protection in the design phase.
 Reduce number of hardware prototypes
 Reduce product development cost
 Reduce time to market
 Improve product reliability

 This is only beginning…Multiphysics ESD Analysis
 Spark Discharge Simulation
 Thermal Damage Simulation© Remcom Inc. All rights reserved.

References1.

https://esda.org/about-esd/esd-fundamentals/part-1-an-introduction-to-esd/2.

http://incompliancemag.com/article/the-qrealq-cost-of-esd-damage/3.

https://esda.org/about-esd/esd-fundamentals/part-5-device-sensitivity-and-testing/4.

http://www.mtarr.co.uk/courses/topics/0215_esdw/index.html

5.

Cerri, G., R. Leo, and V. M. Primiani, “ESD indirect coupling modelling,” IEEE Trans. on EMC, 38, pp. 274 –281, 1996.

6.

Keenan, R. K., and L. K. A. Rossi, “Some fundamental aspects of ESD testing,” Proc. Of IEEE Int. Symp.
on Electromagnetic Compatibility, pp. 236 – 241, 1991.

7.

Songlin, S., B. Zengjun, T. Minghong, and L. Shange, “A new analytical expression of current waveform instandard IEC61000-4-2,” High Power Laser and Particle Beams, 5, pp. 258 – 271, 2003.

8.

Yuan, Z., T. Li, J. He, S. Chen, and R. Zeng, “New mathematical descriptions of ESD current waveform
based on the polynomial of pulse function,” IEEE Trans. on EMC, 48(3), pp. 589 – 591, 2006.

9.

Wang, K., D. Pommerenke, R. Chundru, T. Van Doren, J. L. Drewniak, and A. Shashindranath, “Numericalmodeling of electrostatic discharge generators,” IEEE Trans. on EMC, 45(2), pp. 258 – 271, 2003.

10. Berghe, S. V., and D. Zutter, “Study of ESD signal entry through coaxial cable shields,” J. Electrostat., 44,
pp. 135 – 148, 1998.
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Contact Us XFdtd ESD questions, collaborations, feature requests, beta
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