ESD Systems - Questions And Answers

Our company is an IC Assembly plant. In Back-end production line, we always face the problem of low relative humidity level in certain days every year. Usually, the RH drops to 25%. We know that ESD is a problem for such dry environment, but we don't want to stop the production and several years ago we installed ceiling air ionizers. However, is this equipment enough to eliminate the ESD problem when the humidity is dropped below 30%? How can we prove that production can be continued without being affected by ESD? How we can monitor the performance of these ionizers by some simple and inexpensive methods other than buying a charged-plate monitor? - Anonymous, Fremont, CA,

Humidity control can certainly help, but it is not the primary method of controlling ESD problems. Room ionzation can be very helpful if kept in balance and rather harmful if running in an out-of-balance state.

One way to check this is with an Ionizer monitor.
This will tell you if the room ionizer is running in balance or not.

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