Investigation of the frequency response compensation method for ESD current reconstruction for different test levels and ESD test generators

ESD current reconstruction during the system-level ESD testing procedure according to IEC 61000-4-2 has grown in demand by product manufacturers and testing laboratories over the last years. The correlation between a product failure and the injected current waveform parameters, as well as the repeatability and reproducibility of the IEC 61000-4-2 methodology, have always been a point of interest for ESD researchers and product designers. ESD current probes are growing in popularity and various methods have been proposed for their usability towards this effort. This paper aims to investigate the performance of the frequency response compensation method, as an ESD current reconstruction methodology, for different test levels and commercially available ESD test generators, highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the method based on a satisfying number of measurement results and discuss future work regarding the ESD current reconstruction during system-level ESD-testing.