Working Groups

Lead: Reinhold Gärtner

ESD-sensitive components can be damaged immediately or latently by uncontrolled electrostatic discharges. ESD-sensitive components (ESDS) are for example integrated circuits (ICs) and assembled printed circuit boards (PCBs) without housing, as well as electronic components und sub-components, e.g. electronic control units (ECU) with exposed connectors.

In vehicle assembly environments many insulating – and hence highly chargeable materials – are applied. In addition, insufficiently grounded personnel can charge up to several thousand volts. As a consequence, the risk of ESD damage to sensitive components is addressed by corresponding protection measures of these components. The effectiveness of these on-board protection measures is verified by system-level ESD tests up to several thousand volts during their qualification. In addition, discharges may also occur when cables or wiring harnesses are connected to electronic components or sub-components. These discharges are called cable-discharge events (CDE) and still lack a renowned qualification method. As a result, the risk of cable-discharge events has to be addressed by measures to limit the charging of cables and wiring harnesses.

The state-of-the-art ESD test models cannot address all real-world ESD threats. It is therefore the goal of this working group to work out and maintain a guideline to reduce the threats and damage of ESD-sensitive components due to discharge phenomena during vehicle assembly and support vehicle manufacturers with the implementation of corresponding protection measures.

Lead: Prof. Peter Jacob

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) Protected Areas (EPAs) are commonplace in the production of microelectronic devices, today. The detailed requirements of EPAs are ruled by numerous recognized national and international standards, for example, IEC 61340 (with all of its parts). These standards give detailed specifications and recommendations on the electrical dissipation of flooring, dissipative footwear, coats, gloves, measures for controlled discharge, EPA access controls and so on, in order to establish an effective “ESD hygiene”. By means of standardized audits, the continuous compliance of EPAs with these specifications and recommendations is assessed.

Closer examinations and the experiences made in recent years have shown that the occurrence of ESD issues has clearly shifted from manual to automated handling processes of ESD sensitive devices (ESDS). There are only few cases left that still involve a manual handling of ESDS during their manufacturing and assembly processes. Most of these processes have been automated and are executed by robotic machinery, today. In the past, these machines were almost completely made of metal and were driven by electric motors, which inherently ensured a proper grounding of nearly the entire installation. However, the construction of these machines became subject to a change: Many electric motor drives have been replaced by vacuum or compressed-air drives, metal rails have been replaced by Teflon or other plastic materials with low abrasion, metal cogs and chains gave way to non-ESD-conforming toothed belts, and metal surfaces were anodized or covered with abrasion-resistant protective lacquer, sometimes only for design reasons. At the same time, the process speed (throughput) increased significantly. As a result, an unclear number of new automation-induced ESD risks has been created, which are neither covered by the few related ESD standards nor have they attracted the attention of many ESD coordinators.

The broad variety of machines and installations prevents the specification of mandatory standards for the ESD risk assessment of robotic processes and procedures. Consequently, such risk assessments require both a sound knowledge of manifold non-trivial electrostatic effects and an engineering approach to identify critical issues of machines and installations. In addition, the knowledge about related measurement techniques is indispensable.

It is the goal of this working group to work out and maintain a guideline to describe the systematic approach of these risk assessments and provide additional hints, detailed explanations and proposals for possible corrective actions in order to provide committed ESD coordinators with a practical tool for their daily work.