Hi Dean,
I realize this is an old thread, but in case anyone else is looking for more info on this:
1) The ESD Industry Council has a 3-part whitepaper series on simulation and analysis for “System Efficient ESD Design” including Spice modeling and
PART I: Common ESD Misconceptions
PART II: Implementing Robust Systems (SEED Simulation Basics Intro)
PART III: ESD Testing and Problems with Simulation
2) ESD leaders from semiconductor and system-level companies condensed these into a textbook format.
System Level ESD Co-Design (Wiley)
3) Once you read and internalize all that and you’re ready to roll-your-own simulation, you’ll have to request the actual ESD regime TLP data from your prospective vendors (both for the device you’re trying to protect and for the TVS protection devices or passives you’re trying to model to protect the other device.) You’ll also need the IT2 and/or energy and/or VT2 failure points for these devices.
And you’ll quickly recognize that while the academics have really nailed down HOWTO do these simulations, (full disclosure: I’m one of the dozens of co-authors of all the above, guilty-as-charged of multi-hundred page academic bloviation), there is almost no help for the designer to obtain all this data and/or models required. Further, your semiconductor supplier/application engineer contact may not even be aware that an IBIS or SPICE model for their device is actually only applicable to small-signal/signal integrity transient or AC simulation and not high-current ESD pulse regimes.
In which case (full disclosure, our company) Pragma Design hosts a database of thousands of curated ESD-capable models for TVS and ASIC devices (https://lite.pesto.design), and with PESTO2 the ability to roll-your-own quickly and with validated and convergent results. This latter element is the most difficult part of the ESD/EOS simulation process—because at the end of the day, did you get the right data for TVSA and TVSB….TVSZXY32 and GPIO3 of ASICABC? Also, there are dozens of variants of ESD gun models, not to mention that even in-spec guns vary dramatically in output and results. And how much does changing one or two parameters affect your simulation and does the output make sense? Does it match measurements expected or captured in the lab? That’s what’s missing in ESD Simulation, and that’s what an online tool with a curated library of models addresses.
Also, a short video on the difficulties of Electrostatic Discharge simulation.
Cheers,
Jeff Dunnihoo
System ESD Architecture
Pragma Design, Inc
(512) 277-5424