You’ve likely experienced it yourself—walking across a carpet on a dry day, reaching for a metal doorknob, and getting a tiny but surprising static shock. That small spark is a form of electrostatic discharge, or ESD. While it’s harmless to you, a similar event can be catastrophic for the delicate and microscopic components inside modern electronics like your phone, computer, or television. A single, invisible zap can permanently damage or degrade a microcircuit, leading to device failure.

To prevent this, engineers must understand how sensitive their components are to these discharges. This is where ESD sensitivity testing comes in. The goal is to create a standardized framework that produces reliable and repeatable test results, allowing any component to be accurately classified according to its ESD sensitivity.

To test a threat reliably, you first need a standardized model of that threat. This is where the testing process begins.