Analysis, Testing and Comparison of Different Commercial ESD Detectors

This paper investigates the response of various commercial electrostatic discharge (ESD) detectors with respect to their ability to detect charged device model (CDM) like short pulses and their ability to discriminate between CDM and non-CDM pulses. A series of test setups (TEM cell, sphere-to-Gnd discharge, narrow pulse generator) were set up to evaluate how different detectors behave at different pulse widths and field strengths. Pulse durations varying from 150 ps - 16 ns FWHM were applied in the different test setups. The measured responses of the detectors under different ESD conditions are analyzed and compared.