Human-body model

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title: "Human-body model" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["electrical-phenomena"] description: "Damage susceptibility model" topic_path: "general/electrical-phenomena" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-body_model" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Damage susceptibility model ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/ESD_(Susceptible).svg" caption="Warning label for an electrostatic sensitive device, denoting the devices susceptibility to damage. A similar symbol without the bar and with a black "dome" denotes ESD-safe equipment."] ::

The human-body model (HBM) is the most commonly used model for characterizing the susceptibility of an electronic device to damage from electrostatic discharge (ESD). The model is a simulation of the discharge which might occur when a human touches an electronic device.

The HBM definition most widely used is the test model defined in the United States military standard, MIL-STD-883, Method 3015.9, Electrostatic Discharge Sensitivity Classification. This method establishes a simplified equivalent electrical circuit and the necessary test procedures required to model an HBM ESD event.

An internationally widely used standard is JEDEC standard JS-001.

HBM is used primarily for manufacturing environments to quantify an integrated circuit to survive the manufacturing process. A similar standard, IEC 61000-4-2, is used for system level testing and quantifies protection levels for a real world ESD event in an uncontrolled environment.

Model

In both JS-001-2012 and MIL-STD-883H the charged human body is modeled by a 100 pF capacitor and a 1500 ohm discharging resistance. During testing, the capacitor is fully charged to several kilovolts (2 kV, 4 kV, 6 kV and 8 kV are typical standard levels) and then discharged through the resistor connected in series to the device under test.

References

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::