ESD Fundamentals

Every step you take, every time you stand up from a chair and every plastic bag you pick up leaves thousands of volts on your body. You feel none of it below about 3,000 volts. Some of the parts inside a phone, a server or a graphics card are damaged by less than 100. This course explains, in everyday language and without assuming any electronics background, what static electricity is, what it does inside a chip and how to stop it reaching the parts you handle.

Module 1 covers the phenomenon: how contact and separation charges people and objects, what the voltages mean, why charge sits on insulators and flows on conductors, what humidity does and does not do, how a charged object damages a part without touching it, and the 3 myths that get parts damaged. Module 2 covers why it matters: how a discharge punches through the layers inside a chip, how little voltage modern parts tolerate, why a part that passes test can still be damaged and fail months later, what that costs, how parts charge themselves in trays and tubes, and where the risk hides in unpacking, repair, installation, returns and shipping. Module 3 covers prevention: the 3 ideas behind every control, how to ground yourself properly, the handling rules, packaging that shields and packaging that does not, the symbols, clothing, a portable kit, what to do if you suspect a discharge, and where formal programs take over.

The course is for anyone who touches electronics outside a formal ESD program, or before joining one: IT and data center technicians, phone and computer repair staff, warehouse and returns staff, field installers, retail staff, hobbyists and new hires at electronics companies. It is also for managers who need to understand what the ESD program they pay for is protecting. It differs from the PlanetISO ESD Awareness course in scope: this course is the what, why and how for everyone, written around the physics and the habits. ESD Awareness is the control program course for people working inside an ESD protected area built to ANSI/ESD S20.20 or IEC 61340-5-1, covering the protected area, the daily checks, the audit and the handler's responsibilities. Take this one first if you are new to the subject, and take ESD Awareness if your employer runs a formal program.

The course closes with a 10-question examination drawn from a bank of 20. On passing you receive a PlanetISO Certificate of Completion with lifetime access to the course. The certificate does not expire.