Travelling-wave Fast-transient ESD Simulation

Human electrostatic discharge is discussed as a travellingwave process, with the objective of simulating the initial nanosecond-scale current impulse. The approach presented uses swept-frequency impedance measurements at the "fingertip" to establish equivalence between the human subject and the simulator which is a lossy dielectric strip. The impedance measurements at the fingertip are used for approximate FFT calculation of transient discharge current. Time-domain arc discharge current measurements for the human subject and the simulator are presented for comparison. Also presented are method-of-moments calculations of time-domain discharge currents, using a loaded wire grid representation for the lossy dielectric strip simulator.