Insertion loss as transfer coefficient for the calibration of ESD simulators. Is it sufficient to cope with?

Up to now, solely the S/sub 21/ parameter of the target is used for its characterisation in electrostatic discharge (ESD) simulations. This parameter depends on the source and load impedance and on the network adapting the target input to the coaxial connector of the network analyser. The new draft of the ANSI and IEC standards require a very flat S/sub 21/ parameter of the target up to 4 GHz. Moreover, these standards introduce a low frequency transfer impedance for the recalculation of the voltage displayed at the oscilloscope to the discharge current. The paper shows that a frequency remastering method applied to the IEC target results in more than 1.6% of the error for the peak value. It is, however, negligible if the S/sub 21/ parameter of the target changes slightly with frequency.