Visually detecting electrostatic discharge events
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsStephen P. AYOTTE, David J. HILL, John T. KINNEAR, JR., Glen E. RICHARD, Timothy M. SULLIVAN, Heather M. TRUAX
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and structures provide an electrostatic discharge (ESD) indicator including an electric field sensitive material configured to undergo a specific color change in response to an electric field. An exposure of the structure to an ESD can be visually determined via the specific color change of the ESD indicator.
Claims23
A method comprising:
- providing a structure including an electrostatic discharge (ESD) indicator, comprising an electric field sensitive material configured to undergo a specific color change in response to an electric field;
- and
- visually determining an exposure of the structure to an ESD event via the specific color change of the ESD indicator.
A structure comprising:
- an object;
- and
- an electrostatic discharge (ESD) indicator comprised of an electric field sensitive material that is configured to change into one of a plurality of predetermined colors corresponding, respectively, to a plurality of predetermined electric field strength ranges.
A computer program product comprising a computer usable storage medium having a computer readable program stored in the medium, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, is operable to cause the computing device to:
- encode an image of an object including an electrostatic discharge (ESD) indicator;
- determine a color of the ESD indicator in areas of the image;
- correlate the determined color of the ESD indicator with a color reference;
- correlate the color reference to one of a plurality of predetermined ratings of ESD severity;
- and
- record an ESD history of the object, the ESD history associating an identifier of object with the one of the plurality of predetermined ratings of ESD severity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.