In the semiconductor world and as a compliant ISO semiconductor manufacturer, Infineon Technologies has to perform ESD testing on all of their products. This ESD testing has historically been for handling information and what basic internal protection that the IC is capable of. This testing is prescribed by JEDEC and is JESD22-A114. It is a simple test where the device under test (DUT) is placed into a socket where pins to be tested are programmed and ESD is injected into the pins with respect to ground. In most cases, the DUT is powered off in this type of test where the DUT is tested for functionality after the ESD testing is completed. For systems that customers develop, they use a system ESD standard called IEC61000-4-2. Various levels of ESD protection are prescribed but many companies test to Level 4 which is +/-15kV Air Discharge and +/-8kV Contact Discharge. It is very important to highlight the difference between the two test standards. One is for semiconductors and the other is mainly for systems. Some ICs will adhere to this but for application specific cases such as a USB PHY where the data pins must also meet an IEC61000-4-2 level of ESD withstand tolerance. The main difference is that the ESD waveform is different.