Desco - Questions And Answers

We are in a cleanroom, gowned up with latex, class 100 gloves. We have ground straps on the skin and have the parts on a 3M gounded mat. We are installing pcb's to chassis's and sometimes inserting a prom. Is there a white paper or info for the pro / con of going to a nitrile glove (dissapative / low tribroelectric, ??) glove. Thanks

If the latex gloves you are using are insulative and, being a non-conductor, any electrostatic charges on them will not be removed to ground. Charges will be removed from the operator, but not on the glove.

For ESD control, dissipative gloves should be used. Per ANSI/ESD S541 section 7.2.2 Resistance of Dissipative Materials "A static dissipative material shall have a surface resistance of greater than or equal to 1.0 x 10^4 Ohms but less than 1.0 x 10^11 Ohms.

ESD Systems.com has two gloves that are dissipative that might be appropriate for your application

See TD-17200 Glove, Nitrile, Cleanroom

See TD-17100 Glove, Antistatic, Vinyl, Clear

Gloves can be used to address possible Charged Device Model (CDM) failures which is discussed in the ESD Handbook TR 20.20 paragraph 2.7.4 Discharge from the Device, "Once charged, the [ESD sensitive] device is capable of discharging to a conductor causing damage." Increasing the person’s hand resistance by wearing a dissipative glove will slow the speed of the discharge.

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