What Everybody Needs to Know About ESD Shielding

What Everybody Needs to Know About ESD Shielding

Imagine you're walking across a carpeted room to turn on a light switch. You reach the light switch, flick it on and…zap! You feel a slight electric shock pulse through your arm. What was that? You've just experienced an electrostatic discharge (ESD) event.

ESD can happen at any time when a statically charged object makes contact with a grounded object. In this example, the statically charged object is the person who just walked across a carpeted area, and the grounded object is the light switch. Like this example, ESD effects aren't necessarily traumatic or painful. However, when it comes to electronic devices, ESD can be a killer. Although humans don't usually feel it, ESD is accompanied by intense heat that could cause severe damage to electronic components.

ESD is a sudden and brief unwanted electric current that flows between two objects at different electrical potentials. It's caused by direct contact or induced by an electrostatic field and is normally invisible to the naked eye. You might not know this shock has occurred until much later, when damage your electronics causes them to no work properly or altogether fail. This is why ESD shielding is so important.

What is ESD Shielding?

To protect your electronics from severe or irreparable damage, vacuum metallization for ESD shielding is a great option to consider. ESD shielding protects your devices from electrical interference caused my ESD. By using vacuum metallization internal electronics and external devices are protected.

Since most damage is caused in the first nanoseconds of an ESD event, proper ESD shielding is imperative. With ESD shielding, a vacuum metallization process is used to coat plastic enclosures of electronic components with a very thin coat of metal. This metal works as a barrier to prevent ESD from occurring and causing damage. Before applying the metal coating, it's important to make sure the plastic enclosure is cleaned properly and efficiently in order to ensure a uniform bond during the metal plating process. Even though vacuum metallization for ESD shielding will help reduce susceptibility to ESD, manufacturers should still perform Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) testing. This testing ensures that equipment neither radiates nor conducts electromagnetic energy or is susceptible to outside energy sources within its normal operating environment.

Now that you know all about ESD and the benefits of using vacuum metallization for ESD shielding, you're ready to make a decision on how to protect your electronics. Request a free sample to see how ESD shielding can prevent damage.