Electrostatic discharge education important

I am writing in regards to an article published in both the print and online versions of Horizons magazine (Volume 12, Issue 6, 2007) titled, “Are you grounded?”

I totally agree with Tom Smith, a senior component application engineer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on the importance of educating our employees about electrostatic discharge (ESD).

Knowing about this subject could help save our company thousands of dollars. It could help eliminate needless scrapping or the need to rework products, which results in unnecessary repair work for our customers and ultimately affects our turnaround time. Even worse, this could cause our customer to lose the trust we had worked hard to establish in the past.

I believe that ESD should be emphasized and then re-emphasized again — not only to our new employees, but also to our experienced employees. Retraining everyone will help us all be reminded of the consequences. People tend to take things for granted when all seems to be going well.

I remember receiving a shock, which was caused by ESD, when I touched the exterior part of a car door while in the United States. In Singapore, we usually do not experience such problems because of our climate and the high humidity (usually 90 to 95 percent). It is this perception that makes people here less aware of potential ESD damages. In fact, most metal-oxide semiconductor devices in printed circuit boards can be damaged with as little as 20 volts of discharge.

I was very pleased to find this article in Horizons magazine. It reminded me – and hopefully reminded all of those who read it – about the potential damages that can occur from ESD. These damages can happen anywhere if we fall into the sin of complacency.

Hwee Kwan
Singapore