Air discharge immunity testing for electronic equipment is specified in the standard 61000-4-2 of the International Eelectrotechnical Commission (IEC) under the climatic conditions of temperature (T) from 15 to 35 degrees Celsius and relative humidity (RH) from 30 to 60%. This implies that the air discharge testing is likely to provide significantly different test results due to the wide climatic range. To clarify effects of the above climatic conditions on air discharge testing, we previously measured air discharge currents from an electrostatic discharge (ESD) generator with test voltages from 2kV to 15kV at an approach speed of 80mm/s under 6 combinations of T and RH in the IEC specified range and non-specified climatic range. The result showed that the same absolute humidity (AH), which is determined by T and RH, provides almost the identical waveforms of the discharge currents despite different T and RH, and also that the current peaks at higher test voltages decrease as the AH increases. In this study, we further examine the combined effects of air discharges on test voltages, T, RH and AH with respect to two different approach speeds of 20mm/s and 80mm/s. As a result, the approach speed of 80mm/s is confirmed to provide the same results as the previous ones under the identical climatic conditions, whereas at a test voltage of 15kV under the IEC specified climatic conditions over 30% RH, the 20mm/s approach speed yields current waveforms entirely different from those at 80mm/s despite the same AH, and the peaks are basically unaffected by the AH. Under the IEC non-specified climatic conditions with RH less than 20%, however, the peaks decrease at higher test voltages as the AH increases. These findings obtained imply that under the same AH condition, at 80mm/s the air discharge peak is not almost affected by the RH, while at 20mm/s the lower the RH is, the higher is the peak on air discharge current.

Measurements of contact discharge current waveforms from an ESD generator with a test voltage of 4kV are conducted with the IEC specified arrangement of a 2m long return current cable in different three calibration environments that all comply with the IEC calibration standard to identify the occurrence source of damped oscillations (ringing), which has remained unclear since contact discharge testing was first adopted in 1989 IEC publication 801-2. Their frequency spectra are analyzed comparing with the spectrum calculated from the ideal contact discharge current waveform without ringing (IEC specified waveform) offered in IEC 61000-4-2 and the spectra derived from a simplified equivalent circuit based on the IEC standard in combination with the measured input impedances of one-ended grounding return current cable with the same arrangement in the same calibration environment as those for the current measurements. The results show that the measured contact discharge waveforms have ringing around the IEC specified waveform after the falling edge of the peak, causing their spectra from 20MHz to 200MHz, but the spectra from 40MHz to 200MHz significantly differ depending on the calibration environments even for the same cable arrangement, which do not almost affect the spectra from 20MHz to 40MHz and over 200MHz. In the calibration environment under the cable arrangement close to the reference ground, the spectral shapes of the measured contact discharge currents and their frequencies of the multiple peaks and dips roughly correspond to the spectral distributions calculated from the simplified equivalent circuit using the measured cable input impedances. These findings reveal that the root cause of ringing is mainly due to the resonances of the return current cable, and calibration environment under the cable arrangement away from the reference ground tends to mitigate the cable resonances.

To investigate electrostatic discharge (ESD) immunity testing for wearable electronic devices, the worst scenario i.e., an ESD event occurs when the body-mounted device approaches a grounded conductor is focused in this paper. Discharge currents caused by air discharges from a charged human through a hand-held metal bar or through a semi-sphere metal attached to the head, arm or waist in lieu of actual wearable devices are measured. As a result, it is found that at a human charge voltage of 1kV, the peak current from the semi-sphere metal is large in order of the attachment of the waist (15.4A), arm (12.8A) and head (12.2A), whereas the peak current (10.0A) from the hand-held metal bar is the smallest. It is also found that the discharge currents through the semi-sphere metals decrease to zero at around 50ns regardless of the attachment positions, although the current through the hand-held metal bar continues to flow at over 90ns. These discharge currents are further characterized by the discharge resistance, the charge storage capacitance and the discharge time constant newly derived from the waveform energy, which are validated from the body impedance measured through the hand-held and body-mounted metals. The above finding suggests that ESD immunity test methods for wearable devices require test specifications entirely different from the conventional ESD immunity testing.

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) generators cause electromagnetic (EM) noises not only at ESD tests but also even before and after the tests. This may provide inconsistent test results, but the mechanism has not been well examined. To explain the mechanism qualitatively, we investigated a generation source model of EM noises from an ESD generator in conjunction with the functional control sequences of built-in relay switches and the DC high voltage power supply. To validate this model, we used a magnetic field probe to measure the induced EM noises before, during, and after contact and air discharges in accordance with the corresponding timing of the functional control sequences. As a result, we confirmed that the EM noises are induced when the relay switches operate before and at ESD testing and after ESD tests for both contact and air discharges. In addition, we found that the noise peaks due to contact discharges increase with charge voltages, and the peaks just before and at the testing are relatively larger than the ones after the tests, while the peaks of the induced noises at the air discharge testing do not always increase with charge voltages, but reach a maximum at 3kV. In addition, the peaks of the induced noises at the air discharge testing become smaller than either the peaks just before the testing and those after the tests at charge voltages above 6kV. This suggests that the EM noises just before ESD testing and after the test may cause the EUT to malfunction when air discharge tests with charge voltages over 6kV are conducted. A new control sequence of the built-in relay switch was also proposed for reducing the EM noises after ESD tests, which was validated through noise measurements.