Analysis of upsets and failures due to ESD by the FDTD-INBCs method

In this paper, a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) model of an electrostatic discharge (ESD) event is developed. Analytical expressions for the field radiated during the ESD discharge phase have been determined to test the FDTD model of the strike arc. In order to take into account the electromagnetic field penetration through shielding structures, the conductive panels are efficiently modeled in the FDTD by the impedance network boundary conditions (INBCs). The FDTD-INBCs method avoids the huge amount of cells needed to model accurately the penetration in the traditional FDTD algorithm based on the utilization of the regular Yee grid. The method is applied to the analysis of ESD events in some configurations.