What are the proper procedures and test methods for evaluating static control floor materials?
Differences in the resistance measurements of flooring materials usually occur for at least one of these four reasons: different procedures, different electrodes, different applied voltages, or different resistance-measurement instruments. Eliminating measurement differences that result from variations in these factors is one of the key goals of standards development. For electronics applications in the United States, the primary standards used to measure the resistance of floor materials are ANSI/ESD 7.1 and ESD STM97.1. In Europe, the primary standards are EN 100015 and IEC 1340-4-1, Part 4. Developed specifically for static control flooring in electronics environments, these standards replace such general resistance standards as NFPA 99, ASTMF-150, or DIN 51953. Although the standards differ somewhat in their procedures, electrodes, applied voltages, or instrumentation, the goal of each is to provide a standard methodology for the evaluation of floor materials. For example, the ANSI
