Our first post of this series will discuss the Human Body Model (HBM) waveform. The HBM test is intended to simulate an electrostatically charged person discharging through an integrated circuit. If you look at the latest version of the joint JEDEC/ESDA HBM standard, ANSI/ESDA/JEDEC JS-001-2017, you will see a circuit diagram similar to the one shown in Figure 1. A high-voltage power supply charges a 100 pF capacitor and then, with a flip of a switch, discharges through a 1500 W resistor into the device under test (DUT).
If the DUT is close to a short, the circuit diagram implies the blue current versus the time curve shown in Figure 2 for 2000 V. The instantaneous rise of the current to 1.33 A is of course not realistic; inductance, capacitance and the finite turn on time of the switch will round off the peak. The specifications for the actual current waveform in JS-001 into a short are given:
There are some subtleties to how these specifications are applied to a measured waveform and criteria for a 500 W load in addition to the short, but those are topics for another post.
The question is often raised: is this waveform realistic for a real HBM event on a factory floor and if not, what should the waveform be? The original waveform captures used to establish the HBM event are certainly not as good as the ones made by Jon Barth and his co-authors in 2003 [1]. They measured discharges from people charged to various voltages and measured the discharge current under very controlled conditions with a 6 GHz oscilloscope and a high bandwidth current sensor. A sample waveform is shown in Figure 3. At first glance, this real waveform is similar to the standardized waveform. There is a rapid rise in current, followed by a slower decay. Looking into the details, the Barth team found a significant difference between the standard waveform and real-world HBM. They found very fast rise times in a dry atmosphere, an order of magnitude faster than the 2 ns to 10 ns rise-time specification. The results were also very dependent on humidity; high humidity reduced peak heights and increased the rise time. Geometry also affected the results. Flat surfaces created the fastest rise times and higher peak currents, while a pointed discharge surface also reduced peak heights and increased rise times. The current decay also differed from a pure exponential decay. The decay started out with a decay faster than the standard 150 ns time constant, but then the discharge rate slowed as the discharge progressed. These effects are all related to the properties of an arc forming in air. This is a very complex physical process; some details are discussed in the Barth paper.
Source: SRF Technologies - Post
Link to Press Release
If the DUT is close to a short, the circuit diagram implies the blue current versus the time curve shown in Figure 2 for 2000 V. The instantaneous rise of the current to 1.33 A is of course not realistic; inductance, capacitance and the finite turn on time of the switch will round off the peak. The specifications for the actual current waveform in JS-001 into a short are given:
- Peak Current: 0.667 A/kV ± 10 %
- Decay Time: 130 – 170 ns
- Rise Time: 2 – 10 ns
- Ringing: ± 15 % of I Peak
There are some subtleties to how these specifications are applied to a measured waveform and criteria for a 500 W load in addition to the short, but those are topics for another post.
The question is often raised: is this waveform realistic for a real HBM event on a factory floor and if not, what should the waveform be? The original waveform captures used to establish the HBM event are certainly not as good as the ones made by Jon Barth and his co-authors in 2003 [1]. They measured discharges from people charged to various voltages and measured the discharge current under very controlled conditions with a 6 GHz oscilloscope and a high bandwidth current sensor. A sample waveform is shown in Figure 3. At first glance, this real waveform is similar to the standardized waveform. There is a rapid rise in current, followed by a slower decay. Looking into the details, the Barth team found a significant difference between the standard waveform and real-world HBM. They found very fast rise times in a dry atmosphere, an order of magnitude faster than the 2 ns to 10 ns rise-time specification. The results were also very dependent on humidity; high humidity reduced peak heights and increased the rise time. Geometry also affected the results. Flat surfaces created the fastest rise times and higher peak currents, while a pointed discharge surface also reduced peak heights and increased rise times. The current decay also differed from a pure exponential decay. The decay started out with a decay faster than the standard 150 ns time constant, but then the discharge rate slowed as the discharge progressed. These effects are all related to the properties of an arc forming in air. This is a very complex physical process; some details are discussed in the Barth paper.
Source: SRF Technologies - Post
Link to Press Release