Antistatic is the ESD control property properly referred to as “low charging”. This is an important property for all bags used inside or outside of an ESD protected area (EPA). Specifically, it is important that the inside of the bag be low charging, so when the ESD Sensitive Device is inserted into the bag or otherwise moves, there will be minimum electrostatic charge generation. All of our bags have this property.
Dissipative is the electrical property of resistance so when grounded electrostatic charges will be removed to ground. It is conductive but the high resistance range of 1 x 104 to less than 1 x 1011 ohms per Packaging standard ANSI/ESD S541. This is an important ESD control property as the bag can be grounded, that is being dissipative (or conductive) provides an electrical path for an electrostatic charge to dissipate from the bag.
All bags inside the ESD Protected Area [EPA] are to be both low charging and dissipative (or conductive) whether packaging ESD sensitive item or non-ESD sensitive items. Per ANSI/ESD S541 section 6.1 Inside an EPA “Packaging used within an EPA (that satisfies the minimum requirements of ANSI/ESD S20.20) shall be: 1. Low charge generation. 2. Dissipative or conductive materials for intimate contact.”
Per ANSI/ESD S541 section 7.2.2 “Packaging materials that are in intimate contact with devices should be dissipative.”
See Statfree® Ultra Clear Barrier Bags which are both low charging and dissipative.
Note: The ESD Association sells most of its documents; however, the Packaging standard ANSI/ESD S541 is available as a complimentary download. Go to www.ESDA.org, then click “Standards” and then “Documents”, and scroll down to download ANSI/ESD S541 which you can then save to your computer as a .pdf.