ESD & Normes IEC

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a rapid transfer of electric charge between two objects at different potentials. It occurs when two materials separate (friction, contact) or when a charged object approaches a grounded conductor. In the electronics industry, these discharges can reach several thousand volts and cause irreversible damage to sensitive components, even when the discharge is imperceptible to the operator.

Today’s miniaturisation technologies make components increasingly sensitive. The junctions in modern transistors and integrated circuits are so thin that even a tiny discharge can cause local overheating, melt the junctions, or create latent damage that is invisible on visual inspection but reduces the component’s service life or reliability.

There are two types of damage. Catastrophic damage: the component is destroyed immediately, and the defect is detected during end-of-line testing. Latent (or hidden) damage: the component passes testing but has a structural weakness that will cause premature failure in service at the customer’s site. Latent damage is the most dangerous, as it leads to returns, recalls and damage to the manufacturer’s reputation.

Every sector that handles electronic components or subassemblies: consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, defence, telecommunications, medical, semiconductors, and any workshop that repairs or assembles PCBs. Ongoing miniaturisation widens this scope every year.

IEC 61340-5-1 is the main international reference for protecting electronic devices from electrostatic phenomena. It defines the requirements for designing and managing an EPA (ESD Protected Area), staff training obligations, equipment verification methods and the procedures to be put in place. All Eurostat products are qualified using the test methods of the IEC 61340 series.

IEC 61340-5-1 sets out the general requirements for protecting ESD-sensitive devices and governs how an EPA is set up. IEC 61340-5-2 is its user guide: it provides practical recommendations, examples and explanations to help companies apply 5-1. The two are complementary and used together.

The standard is not required by law in most countries, but it has become an essential contractual requirement in many sectors (aerospace, defence, automotive, medical). Customers often require their suppliers to comply with it, and compliance may be checked during customer audits, or during ISO 9001 audits when it is a contractual requirement. Its US counterpart, ANSI/ESD S20.20, covers the same ground and has its own certification scheme.

The IEC 61340 series is a family of standards covering all aspects of industrial electrostatics. In particular, it includes test method standards for characterising the electrostatic properties of materials and equipment: surface resistance, volume resistance, charging voltage, decay time, etc. Eurostat qualifies its products according to IEC 61340-1, 2-1, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1 to 4-10, 5-1, 5-2, 5-3 and 5-5.

Eurostat’s President chairs the French committee (TC 101 working groups WG5 and WG13, dedicated to ESD) and is a permanent voting member at the IEC. Eurostat is therefore the only French voice on the IEC TC 101 committee and takes part directly in drafting the latest standards. This allows Eurostat to qualify its solutions against current standard requirements, even before they are officially published.

An EPA is a work area specifically designed to protect ESD-sensitive components and assemblies. It is physically delimited and marked with standardised signage. In an EPA, all equipment, work surfaces, packaging and garments worn by staff are antistatic or dissipative, and everything is connected to a common ground to avoid potential differences.

An EPA compliant with IEC 61340-5-1 requires in particular: grounding of all conductive items (worksurfaces, shelving, trolleys), full personnel grounding (wrist strap, or ESD footwear with dissipative flooring), suitable packaging and containers for sensitive components, a periodic equipment verification programme, and documented, recurrent staff training.

According to IEC 61340-5-1, the surface resistance of a dissipative worksurface must be between 10^6 and 10^9 ohms. For floor mats, point-to-point resistance and resistance to ground must also meet the criteria defined by the standard, measured using the IEC 61340-4-1 method. These values must be checked periodically and documented.

Yes. Eurostat offers on-site ESD audits to identify gaps against IEC 61340-5-1, ESD training at 3 levels (operators, technicians, ESD coordinators), and a product characterisation service in our laboratory. See our Training, Audit and Services page.

These three terms describe different levels of electrical resistance. Conductive materials have a resistance below 10^5 ohms: they drain charges very quickly but can cause dangerous currents. Dissipative materials (10^5 to 10^11 ohms) drain charges in a controlled, gradual way; this is the most widely used category in ESD. Antistatic (or low-charging) materials generate little or no electrostatic charge, but do not necessarily drain it.

Shielding (electrostatic shielding) is a package’s ability to protect its contents from external electrostatic fields, even outside an EPA. A shielding package acts as a Faraday cage around the component: charges stay on the outside of the package and do not reach the component. It is essential for transporting and storing sensitive components outside a protected area. See our Flexible packaging range.

Compliance is verified by laboratory testing using the measurement methods defined in the IEC 61340 standards. All Eurostat products are qualified according to these test methods. Our characterisation laboratory can also test your own products or materials and issue a documented characterisation report. Avoid products that are simply labelled “ESD” without referencing the qualification standard used.