en 61000 standards
Hi Waseem,
yes, system level testing is for a completed system, and is too extreme as well as uncontrolled for components.
The exceptionally high levels are usually mitigated for an individual component, in a system, because once placed on a PCB, other components and parasitics help protect the part. testing a single component IC against IEC 61000-4-2 is very harsh, meaningless and impractical, so thats why I recommend against it.
Even for pins that will be fully exposed to the system, say a USB or ethernet interface, are not good candidates for component testing using IEC 61000 because even those parts will behave differently once their powers and grounds are hooked up to a PCB.
Again, I can not emphasize this enough, there is very little value in testing individual IC components with a discharge gun. The test is meaningless, matches no standards and does not tell you much about how the part will behave in a system.
For component testing, the best case is to stick with known ESD standards such as JEDEC HBM or CDM. If you have a pin that needs exceptionally high robustness, say for an undefined standard such as "CDE" or "Cable Event Discharge", the best technique is to apply TLP (Transmission Line Pulsing) to that part, which will extract and I-V curve for individual pins, and can apply pulses in the 10's of Amps if needed. The TLP IV curves can give you great knowledge into what type sof events an individual part or pin can withstand.
As for PCB or other system test such as charge Board model, yeah...no really good well accepted standards currently exist.
Finally, checking the grounding of an enclosure, or similar conductance and immunity tests is actually the best use for an ESD gun, and is what they have been designed and used for the past several decades. This is standard practice for system certifications such as CE mark or UL certification.
I hope this helps.