I am interested in finding out industry practice for ESD immunity testing levels. We all know that the generic and ITE immunity standards under the EMC Directive call out ESD test levels up to 4kV contact and 8kV air discharge in accordance with IEC 61000-4-2 test procedures and generic or product specific performance criteria. That is all well and good for determining "CE compliance". However, compliance to these minimum levels doesn't necessarily mean a product is adequately immune in the real world where it can be exposed to much higher levels, particularly in northern climates during the winter. In my opinion, if a product can be expected to be operated in low humidity (10%) and is not specifically installed in an anti-static area, the 8kV contact and 15kV air levels (or even higher) are certainly appropriate to measure your product's immunity to real world ESD levels. Annex A in IEC 61000-4-2 goes into some discussion of this. I appreciate any information this forum may have to share on current industry practice, or any sources of this type of information. My specific interest is ITE used in office and business environments and similar types of equipment.
Thank you. Jim Hulbert Senior Engineer Pitney Bowes ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"
