EMC Aware
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) is increasingly polluting the electromagnetic spectrum and disrupting a wide range of electronic and electrical equipment and services. To help Australian industry deal with this growing problem and meet national and international Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) standards, two EMC Aware courses, EMC - A Problem on the Horizon and EMC - Solving the Problem, are now available.

These EMC Aware courses provide an informed and practical introduction to the EMI problem and the EMC solution. Both courses are based on the expertise of key regulatory bodies, testing and specialist agencies, major manufacturers and education and training institutions including the EMC research conducted by Dr Tee Tang at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Course Benefits Include:

• Increased awareness of EMI and the necessity for EMC standards
• Better understanding of national and international EMC standards and measurement procedures
• Full understanding of the impact of EMC on the design and manufacturing processes and on the importing/distributing and selling of products; and
• Improved ability to meet national and international standards

Dr Tee Tang graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering & PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Queensland. He is currently a Senior Lecturer & Head of Undergraduate Program at the school for Electrical & Electronic Systems Engineering at QUT where he has also set up the EMI/EMC Laboratory. Dr Tang has taught in a wide area of subjects, including digital & analogue electronic circuits, signal & noise theories, communications, microwaves, antennas, electromagnetic wave transmission and propagation.

Chris Cartwright has spent many years with Ericsson in design, manufacturing and training roles. Initially, Chris was exposed to the EMI/EMC issue during the design of a DC/DC converter and later as part of system test implementation of 2Mbit Analogue to Digital Converters. Previously the Manager of the AEDC, Chris brings together EMI/EMC experience and project management skills to the EMC Aware courses and to the establishment of EMC Networks.
 
 

EMC - A PROBLEM ON THE HORIZON - Half Day Course

A general introduction to EMI/EMC issues including the importance of meeting EMC standards, the consequences of non-compliance, overviews of national and international standards, compliance costs and overall management of EMC.

Who should attend?

Company, Sales and Technical Managers and engineers from electronic and electrical manufacturing, importing, distributing and testing companies and regulatory bodies.

Course Outline

EMC - SOLVING THE PROBLEM - Two day course

A detailed overview of key EMC concerns including the theory of EMI, various case studies, measurement and prevention methods, national and international standards and EMC design, manufacturing and testing issues.

Who should attend?

Designers, engineers and technicians from electronic and electrical manufacturing, importing and distributing companies.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

What is EMI/EMC?		Questions and Review	Shielding
Importance of meeting EMC standards		Fundamentals of EMC	Cabling
National and International standards		EMC regulations	Filtering
Detailed overview of a typical EMC standard		EMC Test Methods	Transient suppression
Compliance costs		Designing for EMC	Checklist for good EMC design
EMC management		Grounding

 
 
 

Pre-Compliance                Testing

No matter what product you manufacture, import or export, EMC testing is a cost that you would rather do without. With the introduction of EMC legislation, EMC Testing is the safest method of compliance for entrance to local and international markets. The best you can hope for is to do everything in your power to limit the cost of EMC testing.

There are many damaging impacts to your company that can take place if your product fails at a testing house. These include:

• Waiting anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months to obtain time for the re-testing of your product.
• Expensive board and/or hardware redesign - a headache that I'm sure you can do without
• Lengthy delays in reaching the market meaning lost sales and market share opportunities for every day that your product is late to the market
• Embarrassing yourself to your management and to your customers! Learn how to set up simple conducted and radiated emission tests correctly the first time.
• Each time you have a product tested in a testing house, it will cost somewhere in the vicinity of $1,000 - $2,000. One visit to the EMC Pre-compliance Testing course is a far better investment

This 2 day course will provide participants with the knowledge and techniques to minimise the cost of bringing products to the market place by limiting the cost of EMC testing. The course will include practical demonstrations of equipment that will assist in pre-compliance EMC testing.

Course Benefits Include:

• Benefits of pre-compliance testing
• Understanding of national and international EMC Regulations
• Procedures that need to be followed before submitting products for EMC Compliance Testing
• When to test within your own organisation and when you should approach a testing house
• Awareness of the cost of non-compliance

Engineers, Technicians, Technical Officers and Technical Managers from electronic and electrical manufacturing, importing and distributing companies/organisations

Course Outline

4. Effective Utilisation of Test House Compliance Test

5. How to Set Up EMI Test Sites

6. EMI Measurement Instrumentation
7. Performing Conducted EMI Measurements
8. Performing Radiated EMI Measurement
7. Diagnostic Tests

15. Conclusion

Mr Chris Zombolas - is Technical Director and founder of EMC Technologies Pty Ltd, a NATA, FCC, NZ and Austel accredited EMC Test House specialising in all aspects of EMI and EMC since 1992. He has 24 years experience in the defence, aerospace and commercial electronics industries with the last 16 years concentrated in the EMI/EMC discipline. He was EMC Test and Engineering Facility Manager at RFI Industries for 5 years where he was responsible for the establishment of their EMC test facilities.

He has been responsible for EMI/EMC testing to FCC, VDE, CISPR, MIL-STD 461 and RADHAZ standards. He has been an EMI/EMC design and compliance consultant on a range of products for various Australian companies. He has successfully consulted on EMI/EMC problems in various industries including telecommunications, computer environments and facilities, industrial process control, aerospace, defence and medical. He is the EMC representative of the Electrical Compliance Testing Association of Australia, a member of Standards TE/3 EMI committee, Austel working groups and a member of the various Radiocommunications consultative committees responsible to the Government on the framing of Australia's EMC regulations.
 
 

 EMC and Building Cabling Installation

 In a society heavily reliant on structured cabling systems for communications, there is an increasing problem ensuring signal integrity - particularly with Electromagnetic Interference. Cable suppliers must not only be aware of EMC requirements, but ensure that designers have all the relevant information to ensure an Electromagneticly Compatible installation. Additionally, designers and installers must know the requirements of the relevant standards and the correct techniques to install cabling systems to ensure Electromagnetic Compatibility. This one day course looks specifically at EMI/EMC and its effects on structured cabling systems, and what suppliers, designers and installers need to do to comply with the relevant standards.

Equally important, from a purely commercial perspective, contractors must ensure their total project does not suffer financially, such as failure to meet "practical completion", having "liquidated damages" applied, or worse - "consequential losses" apportioned.
 
 

What Will be Covered?
 

What is EMC / EMI?  EMC Framework in Australia  EMC Standards  Other related Standards  Marking Requirements  EMC and Cabling  Shielded versus Unshielded debate  Installation Practices and EMC Compliance	Installation Testing  Cabling Supplier Claims Examined  Case Studies  Building installation design / modification and EMC compliance  Optical fibre cabling - the Ultimate EMC Solution

 

Who Should Attend?

Cabling Contractors/Installers, Cable Installation Designers, Project Managers, Systems Engineers and Building and Consulting Engineers

Course Duration: 1 day

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this course the attendees will be able to:

• Describe the phenomena of Electromagnetic Interference and Electromagnetic Compatibility.
• Work correctly within the EMC Framework in Australia.
• Understand the current EMC Standards and their application.
• Be aware of other cabling related standards.
• Know the marking requirements for new equipment in Australia and be able to interpret marking on overseas equipment.
• Know the possible EMC problems caused by cabling.
• Know when to use shielded and unshielded cables.
• Know good installation practices for cabling to minimise EMC problems.
• Know how to organise and conduct site testing, if required to prove to a customer that a site meets certain standards.
• Understand building cabling installation design / modification and EMC compliance.
• Interpret cabling supplier claims for cables, connectors and installation recommendations.
• Understand the advantages of optical fibre cabling for optimum EMC performance.

Mr Barney Tomasich is the Market Development Manager - Structured Cabling Systems for Anixter Australia, a major international data cabling and networking company with its head office in the USA. Barney has mare than 18 years experience in the telecommunications industry and is one of Australia’s leading experts in the area of EMC and its effects on structured cabling systems. Barney is chairman of the Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand IT/17 committee "Integrated Cabling Systems for Buildings Committee" and is the Australian representative on ISO/IEC JTC I/SC 25/ WG 3 International "Customer Premises Cabling" standards committee responsible for the issue ISO/IEC 11801 "Generic Cabling for Customer Premises". Barney has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and is a Registered Communications Distribution Designer (BiCSi RCDD), a Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), a Member of Australian Communication Industry Forum (ACIF) Cabling Reference Panel (CRP) and a Member of Australian Government "Structured Cabling Strategy Working Party" inputting to ANZ GOSIP 3.
 
 

PCB Design For EMC  Presented by Mr John Howard

Grounding, Shielding, Cabling, Filtering and Transient Suppression are all important areas in minimising Electromagnetic Interference but without designing your board correctly in the first place, interference is likely to occur. This will add significant cost and time to re-design your product and will mean that extra attention will need to be placed when designing other parts of the "system" to "hide" the interference.

Many design engineers have highlighted that there was a strong need for a PCB Design for EMC course. It’s now here and who better than to teach it than a leader in the field - Mr John Howard. Yes, John Howard! No, not the one that you were thinking of but one who is an expert in this critical field. John Howard is an EMC consultant based in Sunnyvale, California USA. Mr Howard has worked for companies including Hewlett-Packard, Motorola/Four Phase Systems, Lockheed Research and Tandem Computers.

The PCB Design for EMC workshop will focus specifically on designing boards to minimise (and hopefully) eliminate Electromagnetic Interference at the board level.

What Will be Covered

INTRODUCTION

• Development of FCC rules
• European rules and the dreaded VDE
• Asia and the rest of the world
• World wide emission limits - FCC, VDE, EN55022
• Other background topics - conductors vs dielectrics, radiation vs conduction, far field vs near field, the EMC measurement system, EMC test equipment and facilities

• Clocks and "clock-like" circuits
• The characteristics of a clock or "clock-like" device/circuit
• Time domain vs frequency domain
• Clock spectral content
• Ferrite beads as common mode absorbers
• The importance of avoiding a power supply "charge limited" state
• Some geographical topology for clock circuits
• How to get from here to there with minimal damage along the way

• Stripline vs microstrip, microstrip - the shining example, stripline, the quiet way, double offset stripline
• A PCB coaxial transmission line system (video tape)
• Guard trace management
• Line termination schemes
• Those Damaging vias
• Autorouter problems

• Skin effect: Where the currents really flow - HF vs VHF/UHF current flow
• The bypass capacitor problem - the ubiquitous 0.1 uF bypass capacitor, high frequency passive device models
• Power distribution and bandwidth limiting
• Charge distribution and the "bucket brigade"

• Partitioning power and signal returns
• Empowering the charge "bucket brigade"
• The PCB as a noise containment box
• When Vcc is at RF ground, and when it isn’t

• Last chance for common mode isolation - power distribution, selection of ferrites
• Motherboards and backplanes
• Daughterboards
• Logic ground vs shield ground
• Connectors, hoods and shielded cables
• Shielding terminations

• ESD coupling
• Typical static voltages
• The susceptibility loop

• Bring your questions and EMC problems for discussion

John Howard is currently working as an independent consultant with specific expertise in the area of EMC Design and Management. Mr Howard has BSEE and MSEE degrees and has worked as a Hardware Engineer, Engineering Manager and Scientific Researcher for several companies including Hewlett-Packard, Motorola/Four Phase Systems, Lockheed Research and Tandem Computers. He has more than 18 years experience focusing on EMC and has authored or co-authored several technical papers on the subject of design for EMC compliance. Mr Howard is a NARTE registered professional EMC Engineer and a member of the dB Society, a limited membership invitational honorary EMC Group, and guest lectures at various Universities around the USA on the subject of EMC.