Surface resistance of ESD-protected worksurfaces—measurement, modelling and estimation considerations

Abstract

The prevention of electrostatic discharge (ESD) is of crucial importance in the electronics industry, and surfaces of workstations have to be of specific resistance for effective ESD protection. The paper presents results of an R&D project which investigated the—so far rarely researched—dependence of worksurface resistance on ambient conditions and surface contamination. Upon examination of known and assumed dependencies, measurement and instrumentation are outlined, relying on existing automated facility management, autonomous devices, and manual measurement/logging. Further parts of the paper report on an analysis of the data obtained, as well as their use in building models of surface resistance, employing feature selection metaheuristics applied in combination with artificial neural networks. Surface resistance models built with approximately one year’s worth of measurement data yielded estimations with 12 % average relative error, and showed that surface resistance can be estimated relying on data that can be obtained by contactless and remote measurement, without immediate interference with work processes.