March 2014

Automobiles typically have dozens of electronic systems operating interactively in a relatively compact space. These systems must operate reliably in a wide range of environments over extended periods of time. As a growing number of these systems play an ever expanding role in protecting the safety of a vehicle’s occupants, there is an increasing need to ensure that the integrity of these systems will not be compromised by electromagnetic interference.

How do you construct a building without metallic components of any kind? When you are engineers charged with overseeing the design and construction of an Open Area Test Site (OATS) for your company, you find out very quickly how to build a structurally sound facility while still keeping the area free of reflective materials.

Sooner or later, anyone involved with EMI will be involved in troubleshooting an EMI problem, wherever it may surface. Most commonly, the problems will be uncovered during EMI testing, generally very late in the product design cycle, resulting in costly patches and schedule delays. It is best if preliminary EMI testing is done early in the design stage - EMI problems can be uncovered early enough that corrective action can be done in a timely fashion, ideally at the circuit board level. On the back end, EMI problems are often encountered in the field - perhaps because the environment is harsher than that expected by the regulatory agencies or because of an installation problem.

Industry standards play a major role in providing meaningful metrics and common procedures that allow various manufacturers, customers, and suppliers to communicate from facility to facility around the world. Standards are increasingly important in our global economy.

While product safety and reliability are core principles of virtually every manufacturer designing equipment for the telecom industry, the Telcordia Generic Requirements (GRs) that ensure the integrity of such devices and systems are not commonly understood by manufacturers around the globe.

Ethernet’s success in the marketplace is undeniable, and market-driven standardization has been instrumental in its success. It’s a cycle of synergistic innovation and market growth that has been spinning for decades. Ethernet has become entwined with almost every pattern and process of every-day life around the world. Whether a personal computer (PC) has a direct connection to a router or an indirect connection through a “Wi-Fi®” access point, it is highly likely that Ethernet is providing the connection to the Internet.