ESD susceptibility characterization of an EUT by using 3D ESD scanning system

Electrostatic discharges (ESD) can lead to soft-errors (e.g., bit-errors, wrong resets etc.) in digital electronics. The use of lower threshold voltages and faster I/O increases the sensitivity. In the analysis of ESD problems, an exact knowledge of the affected pins and nets is essential for an optimal solution. In this paper, a three dimensional ESD scanning system which has been developed to record the ESD susceptibility map for printed circuit board is presented and the mechanisms that the ESD event couples into the digital devices is studied. The ESD susceptibility of a fast CMOS EUT is characterized by generating the susceptibility map of the EUT. A series of measurements of the noise coupled into a sensitive trace and pin during an ESD soft error event are presented.