Smaller electronic devices create growing ESD problems for manufacturers and end users

WATERTOWN, USA: Smaller electronic components are creating greater risks for electronics manufacturers and mission-critical operations, according to a new study from NanoMarkets regarding the growing threat of ESD (electrostatic discharge).

As electronic parts become more powerful, circuits become smaller, reports NanoMarkets, leading analysts in the electronics industry. This reduces the room available for on-chip static protection, putting billions of dollars at risk if factories and end users of electronic equipment don’t protect their environments with products such as static-control flooring.

The increased vulnerability of electronics has increased the demand for better ESD products in the semiconductor industry, with ESD product sales expected to exceed $8 billion by 2015.

The ESD Association says this trend has implications for flooring applications that need to be fault-tolerant in electronic manufacturing plants, call centers, data centers, labs, hospitals, government, and other industries.

“This perfect ESD storm can have devastating consequences to the semi-conductor industry and mission-critical environments,” says Dave Long, president & CEO of Staticworx, the nation’s largest supplier of ESD flooring. “Electronic devices, once capable of withstanding several hundred volts of static electricity discharge, can no longer handle 50 volts.

“Without correct anti-static flooring, organizations risk significant damage and lost revenue due to equipment failure, downtime, missed communication signals, data corruption, and warranty claims.”

Long cites “the inevitable continuation of Moore’s Law,” which maintains that the number of transistors in integrated circuits has doubled every year for the last 40 years.

Static-control floors installed without consideration of charging properties is a major problem, says Ted Dangelmayer, CEO, Dangelmayer Associates, an ESD analyst.

“There’s a growing need for fault-tolerant products providing Class-0 ESD protection,” he says. “Class-0 ESD devices are driving the need for ESD flooring that is conductive and low-charging.”

Staticworx’s EC Rubber, as recognized by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and ESD Journal, is the only resilient flooring material that provides Class-0, fault-tolerant protection by inhibiting static generation on people wearing any type of footwear. This is critical to compensate for employees failing to wear static-protected footwear.

“Another concern is a disconnect among manufacturers, distributors, architects, subcontractors, and customers,” says Long. “Miscommunication leads to misdiagnosis, which leads to costly problems discovered after it’s too late.”