Realistic Requirements

The ESD control techniques and requirements in this chapter are based on research carried out at AT&T Bell Laboratories, detailed manufacturing studies such as those in Chapter 4, and the author’s eleven years of experience in manufacturing environments. These requirements were first published in a handbook at the AT&T manufacturing facility in North Andover, Massachusetts. Over time, they have been thoroughly reworked by the AT&T Corporate ESD Committee so that they now represent a consensus held by all AT&T locations. In fact, they are now the accepted requirements at all AT&T manufacturing facilities and appear in their final form in the AT&T Electrostatic Discharge Control Handbook. They have been carefully formulated to define minimum standards that will still allow maximum flexibility at each location. As such, they have been successfully used at locations having as few as 50 employees and at others with as many as 11,000. That is to say, they have been proven realistic and suitable for large or small operations.