"Check Designs for EMI Early" praises the EMI engineer
Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 3/5/2007 6:50:00 AM
Walking the aisles of the 2006 IEEE-EMC Symposium in Portland, OR, I thought, “There’s a song here somewhere.” When I heard someone say, “We check designs early for EMI,” I knew then that I'd found my song.
After thinking of a few lines later that day, I knew that I needed a melody, but my guitar was 3000 miles away. When the symposium ended for the day, I headed to
Apple Music Row and sat in the acoustic guitar store with the same model guitar that I use. (Thanks to Glen Watkins of ETS-Lindgren for telling me about the store.)
With a melody in my head, I left for home the next day. I wrote the rest of the lyrics somewhere between Portland and Chicago. “Check designs for EMI early” is something EMI engineers say every day. If only more people would pay attention to that, their products would ship earlier. But, as the song explains, many don’t. They design a product, then test for EMI and get a huge wake-up call when it either emits energy like crazy or is susceptible to interference. So what do some do? They apply a quick fix, pass the test (maybe), and start shipping.
This song is for all the EMI engineers who say, “I told you so,” when a product doesn’t pass a compliance test.
"Check Designs for EMI Early" was recorded at
Melville Park Studio, Boston, MA.
