March 2014

Today’s electrical and electronic devices are subject to mandatory EMC requirements throughout the world. Many devices operate at high frequencies and are very small. They are placed in nonconductive plastic cases providing no shielding. Essentially, all these devices cannot meet these mandatory requirements or they may cause interference to other devices or receive interference causing susceptibility problems without a proper program of EMI control. This program consists of identifying the “suspect” components and circuits that may cause or be susceptible to EMI. This is completed early on in the program to allow for an efficient design in keeping the cost of dealing with EMI as low as possible. A complete EMC program consists of proper filtering, grounding and shielding. This article will discuss the latter, but the other factors cannot and will not be ignored or given insufficient priority.

It’s been said that nobody grows up wanting to be an EMC engineer. Rather, it usually just happens. Maybe you had incriminating information on your resume, such as being a radio ham. “You’ve created interference, so you must know how to stop it, right?” Maybe you showed a knack for EMC troubleshooting, and suddenly you’re now the company expert - whether you want to be or not.

Many manufacturers design a product first, then attempt to “fix” the design later to meet the applicable safety standard. Prior knowledge of the applicable safety standard and its requirements for the product will help meet deadlines, keep design costs down, and result in a properly designed product.

The immunity to ESD of present-day electronic components and devices has further decreased due to the high sensitivity of ICs.

Electronic devices can be exposed to electrostatic discharge (ESD). The discharge process generates rapid electric and magnetic processes that can impair the function of the electronic devices. Devices are tested for their immunity to ESD using special ESD generators and test setups (EN 61004-2).

This article deals with improving EMC measuring methods that are used during the development of automobiles in the field of interference emissions. Development-stage investigations are normally performed with measuring systems that have actually been conceived for vehicle component tests. EMC measuring methods that are tailored to the development stage, however, are much better suited for this task since they help save time and costs. One such measuring method is presented here as a practical example.

With the inventions of the transistor in 1948 and the Integrated Circuit in 1958, and the utilization of these major breakthroughs in the development of computers and other electronic devices, industry began to worry about and to design components and end-products that could survive the discharge of electrostatic discharges to chips, printed circuit boards, and final packaged-products.

This article describes some of the everyday issues that can arise in a working EMC test laboratory which may affect the quality of the measurements made and illustrates these with real-life examples that demonstrate the importance of robust pre-test verifications. The main focus is on emissions testing, as this is perhaps the area where most problems can occur without being detected. The article also looks at how using various types of reference source during pre-test verifications can help identify those problems and prevent invalid measurements being made.

The first broadcasting station in Japan went on-air in 1925, a scant five years after the first radio station went live in the United States. A year later, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) was chartered by the Japanese government and is still the official public broadcast entity. The build-out of NHK’s network into the Pacific was extensive in the 1930s and during the early years of WWII and followed the expansion of Japan’s imperial armed forces across the Pacific.

Designers and manufacturers of electronic products are frequently faced with the question: “How do I find a high-quality EMC testing laboratory where I can confidently test my products?” The emphasis of the great majority of design and/or manufacturing entities is on obtaining (1) quality preliminary testing of EMC characteristics to refine the design of their products and (2) quality final design testing of their product for regulatory approvals. The final design, of course, is what gets manufactured and released to the general population for their use in daily life. This article is intended to aid designers and manufacturers in finding and utilizing high-quality EMC testing laboratories.