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The purpose of this site is to inform our local EMC engineers with information related to the IEEE EMC Chicago Chapter.  Please bookmark this page for future reference, and especially look to this site for news related to the EMC community.

Resonances in electronic systems are responsible for both EMC related failures and system operation problems. We will cover resonances both at  the system level, such as PCB to enclosure/chassis resonances, as well as cable, heat sink, enclosure, and unwanted resonances in antenna  structures such as RFID antennas. We will then cover how to deal with resonant structures both at the last minute during EMC testing and  preemptively, such as adding loss to the structure to damp resonances. Finding and measuring these resonances will be discussed using some  innovative techniques I have developed.

ESD issues including, simulators, troubleshooting, and a new potential serious  safety issue that can occur after months in the field

Have you ever had your product pass ESD in your facility only to have the commercial test lab record a failure? This outcome is very common and a result of the standards we use not specifying parameters of the test that have a large effect on the outcome.The second part of the presentation covers factors that cause unrepeatable test results. Waveform purity and E-field emissions to 5 GHz will be presented for a number of commercially   available ESD simulators and similar data will be presented for real human ESD. You will be able to pick the simulator that will make your product pass or fail, or at least have a useful discussion with the test lab. We will also analyze the test standards to see where the problems in testing occur. Then we will move on to troubleshooting ESD issues using techniques I developed that work much faster than normal engineering troubleshooting methods. Then we will move on to unusual forms of ESD that are not covered in standards but have caused a lot of field problems. Finally, we will look at a new form of ESD, not previously described in the literature that is actually very common and can lead to system upset, AND damage to the to the power mains barrier in a system supply that can lead to a safety issue after a few months in the field, long after safety HIPOT testing was done.

Doug Smith  held an FCC First Class Radiotelephone license by age 16 and a General Class amateur radio license at age 12. He received a B.E.E.E. degree from Vanderbilt University in 1969 and an M.S.E.E. degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1970. In 1970, he joined AT&T Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff. He retired in 1996 as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff. From February 1996 to April 2000 he was Manager of EMC Development and Test at Auspex Systems in Santa Clara, CA. Mr. Smith currently is an independent consultant specializing in high frequency measurements, circuit/system design and verification, switching power supply noise and specifications, EMC, and immunity to transient noise. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a former member of the IEEE EMC Society Board of Directors.

His technical interests include high frequency effects in electronic circuits, including topics such as Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), Electrostatic Discharge (ESD), Electrical Fast Transients (EFT), and other forms of pulsed electromagnetic interference. He also has been involved with FCC Part 68 testing and design, telephone system analog and digital design, IC design, and computer simulation of circuits. He has been granted over 15 patents, several on measurement apparatus.

Mr. Smith holds the title of  University of Oxford Tutor  in the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University in the UK. He has lectured at Oxford University, The University of California Santa Barbara, The University of California Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, AT&T Bell Labs, and internationally at many public and private seminars on high frequency measurements, circuit design, ESD, and EMC. He is author of the book  High Frequency Measurements and Noise in Electronic Circuits. His very popular website,  https://emcesd.com  , draws many thousands of visitors each month to see over 250 technical articles as well as other features.

He provides training and consulting services in general design, EMC, and transient immunity (such as ESD and EFT), and switching power supply noise. His specialty is solving difficult problems quickly, usually within a couple of days. His work has included digital and analog circuits in everything from large diesel powered machinery to space craft to IC chip level circuits. His large client base includes many well known large electronic and industrial companies as well as medium sized companies and start-up companies.

He may be contacted at doug@emcesd.com 

It is fairly common to find multiple on-board sources of energy causing radiated emissions on today’s product designs, including board-level EMI for  wireless portable,  mobile, and IoT devices. The EMI from these energy sources can couple to cables creating radiated emissions, as well as  interfere with the receiver performance of cellular, GPS and other wireless modules. This presentation  describes methods for identifying,  characterizing and reducing the coupling from these energy  sources.

Bench Top Troubleshooting ESD and Radiated Immunity Failures

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) has started to become very common, due to the lower noise  margins for digital circuits. While the test is easy to set  up in-house, it can become one of the  most challenging EMC issues for manufacturers to overcome, because it’s difficult to determine  the path of  ESD current and exactly what circuitry is being affected. In addition, radiated immunity issues have become very common and is nearly impossible  to set up in-house without great expense and trained test operators. Often it involves endless cycles back and forth between adding random fixes  in-house and then running back to the compliance test lab. The delay for both ESD and radiated immunity issues can negatively affect product  introductions. This presentation will  describe a simple method for troubleshooting and  mitigating both issues right on the lab bench. Several case  studies will be described.

For our Professional Engineers (PE's) we are offering 4 PDH credits!

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Students in FREE after 1:00pm

VENDORS (as of 4/14/2024)
Electronic Instrument Associates Central, Inc
ETS-Lindgren
AE TECHRON
HV TECHNOLOGIES
Ophir RF Amplifiers
Detectus / PENDULUM
KGS-America (Kitagawa)
LIGHTNING EMC
ABSOLUTE EMC
NOISEKEN
NEXPERIA
VECTAWAVE
GAUSS-INSTRUMENTS (EMI Receivers)
Elite Electronic Engineering
D.L.S. Electronic Systems, Inc
Tec-Rep
APAmericas
Frankonia
Transient Specialists
TRS-Rentalco
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