Agilent, Rohde & Schwarz make EMC Symposium news

Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 8/15/2006 11:03:00 PM

More from the 2006 IEEE EMC Symposium: EMC software takes center stage

PORTLAND, OR. Today, Agilent Technologies (www.agilent.com) announced at the 2006 IEEE EMC Symposium (August 14-18, www.emc2006.org) that it was returning to the CISPR EMC compliance market. The company announced and previewed the N3039A preselector for frequencies up to 1 GHz. It adds CISPR-compliant capabilities to the PSA E4440A. Company representatives cited the decision to reenter the compliance market on the fact that engineers use the E4440A for numerous EMI measurements and that some have built their own preselectors for CISPR compliance. The company said that the preselector would begin shipping in 2007.

Rohde & Schwarz (www.rohde-schwarz.com) introduced a new FFT scan option to reduce measurement time by 10 to 100 times over receivers without this option. The option is available on the ESU8, ESU26, and ESU40 EMI receivers (photo), which cover frequency ranges of 20 Hz to 8 GHz, 26.5 GHz, and 40 GHz, respectively.

A management buyout of the Schaffner's test systems division (www.schaffner.com) will result in a new company. The announcement was made in a press release on July 28. The new company, which has not yet been named, will be headquartered in Luterbach, Switzerland (conducted EMC products) and Berlin (RF products). The company will also maintain operations in the US, UK, France, and China. The US components division will continue to operate from Edison, NJ.

As always in IEEE society-sponsored conferences, the technical sessions were the highlight of the day. One of the morning sessions included papers that covered signal integrity. In "Broadband Signal Integrity Characterization of a High Speed Differential Backplane Pair," Antonio Ciccomancini of CST simulated the physical parameters of a 16-layer backplane over the 0-20-GHz range. He showed how through vias create reflections of higher amplitude than backdrilled vias, which don't go completely through a PCB.

In the "Extreme EMC" session, Ron Brewer discussed how today's spacecraft are tested to yesterday's EMC standards. He explained that many spacecraft systems are tested for compliance to MIL-STD-461C, released in 1986 instead of being tested to the current version, MIL-STD-461E, "because there is a risk that the items will fail to meet the requirements and thus the cost will increase if it becomes necessary to redesign the equipment."

Bruce Archambault demonstrates how apertures in electronic enclosures affect emissions.

The afternoon featured the first of three EMC measurement sessions. Johan Catrysse opened the session with a presentation about IEEE 1302, a standard that covers test methods for characterizing EMI shielding gaskets. He discussed the history of the standard and that it's now in final edits prior to going to a vote. He expects the standard to be ratified by late 2006 or early 2007. He discussed several gasket-measuring techniques whereby you inject current into a gasket and measure the resulting voltage as well as alternative techniques.

Also in the session, Gang Feng of the University of Missouri-Rolla discussed a method for measuring EMI coupling paths in electronic systems. If the path between EMI sources such as clocks creates unbalanced return currents though alternate paths, these currents can result in EMI radiating from cables.

"Bud" Hoeft discusses a method of measuring the surface transfer impedance of cables.

On the exhibit floor, EMC engineers were treated to several demonstrations and experiments. In the morning, IBM Distinguished Engineer Bruce Archambault (photo) demonstrated a simulation of how apertures in electronic enclosures affect emissions. He also discussed how an enclosure loads down EMI antennas when you try to use them to measure emissions. In the afternoon, Lothar "Bud" Hoeft of EM Effects discussed a method of measuring the surface transfer impedance of cables. He used a network analyzer to excite a copper tube that was built into a wooden fixture that held copper sheets and a copper mesh held together with paper clasps (photo). He explained that transfer impedance in cable shields occurs when current (magnetic fields) on one side of a shield create voltages on the other side of the shield.

Talkback

We would love your feedback!

Post a comment

» VIEW ALL TALKBACK THREADS

Related Content

• Topics
• Author

Related Content

 

By This Author

• Share data across departments
• Inside the Softransceiver
• An RFIC for the world
• Standards issues dominate panel discussion at EMC Symposium
• IEEE-EMC continues with more technical information
• » MORE

Sponsored Links