ESD laboratory for power electronics students

Since the usage of microelectronic components and IC's in electronic systems is growing year by year and reliability is always an issue, the designer has to be aware of possible failures of the components. The ESD (electrostatic discharge) phenomenon arouses more and more interest as these parts are sensitive to short time over voltages. Simulations to predict the effect of ESD in the actual power electronics circuitry are not possible as sufficient models for the components and the complete circuit configuration are not available. Experiments with ESD in conjunction with power electronic devices should make students aware of possible impacts of ESD pulses and methods to protect devices and circuitry. In this paper four experiments together with simple test circuits are presented, which show different aspects of ESD stress like the typical current and voltage wave forms of ESD pulses, system malfunction, pre deterioration and total damage of components