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Industrial Uses of Static Dissipatives for Garments

As electronic components become smaller and smaller, they also become progressively more vulnerable to static electricity. A burst of static electricity so small that it cannot even be felt or seen can still damage or destroy a tiny microelectronic component during its manufacturing process. For this reason, garments that dissipate static are often used in the microelectronics industry.

Electrostatic Discharge
- Electrostatic Discharge, or ESD, is thought to have cost the microelectronics industry billions of dollars in destroyed or damaged parts. ESD is also blamed for one out of every five cases of equipment failure using microelectronic parts. It only takes between .2 to 200 nanoseconds for a burst of static electricity to be discharged -- many times faster than the speed of a burst of lightning. ESD can occur from the ordinary motion of workers around a facility during manufacturing, building up static electricity without realizing it.
Static Dissipative Garments
- Because of the risk that sensitive microelectronic components may be damaged by tiny static electrical discharges during the manufacturing process, workers involved in producing these components are expected to wear special static dissipative garments. These are coats or other types of clothing designed to reduce the static charge carried by the person wearing them and reduce the risk of an electrostatic discharge occurring around sensitive microelectronic parts.
Types of Static Dissipatives
- There are several types of static dissipative garments; one is designed to ground the user, providing the static electricity with a path to the ground along which to travel so that it does not discharge at random when it comes into contact with a conductive object. Another type is made up of separate panels with electrical resistance between them. There is also a distinction between static dissipative garments designed for use in a cleanroom -- a specially insulated room wherein tiny particles must be prevented from contaminating the equipment -- as opposed to a controlled environment in which microparticles are not a concern but static electricity is.
Standards for Static Control Garments
- In 2009, the Electrostatic Discharge Association published an updated set of standards for the manufacture and testing of static dissipative garments for use in preventing electrostatic discharge. According to these updated standards, a static control garment designed to be groundable should test to a specification between 1*10^5 and 1*10^9 Ohms, while a regular static control garment should test to a specification between 1*10^5 and 1*10^11 Ohms.

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