IEEE EMC-Phoenix

Date:  
Place:
Address:
Address:
Time:
Title:
Speaker:

Abstract: 

About the speaker:  

Reservations: 

Future Meeting:

Harry Gaul reports that the second meeting in 2009 of the IEEE EMC Phoenix Chapter  featured Dr. Bruce Archambeault who spoke on The Ground Myth.  Bruce is an IBM Distinguished Engineer at IBM in Research Triangle Park, NC.   This meeting was held in conjunction with one of  the EMC Society’s quarterly Board of Directors meetings.  A total of 65 people attended this presentation.  Bruce started his talk with a little history about Scotland.  He noted that Maxwell was the greatest contribution from Scotland after Scotch.  Bruce emphasized the point about the return current will always find the path of least impedance back to its source.  As EMC Engineers, it’s either up to us to control that path or it will be up to God and Maxwell to figure it out.  The bottom line is “How lucky do we feel today about the current getting back to its source?”  Bruce provided some interesting insight to so-called differential signal traces.  First, these traces actually have significant current flow into and out of the signal reference planes because of the close proximity between the pair traces and the planes.   Thus, careful consideration must be used when routing these traces above reference planes to ensure the traces do not encounter discontinuities in the planes such as gaps.  Also, unequal trace lengths of the differential traces will create timing skew that may minimally affect signal quality but will create large common mode currents, which are responsible for most EMC problems.  Bruce’s presentation slides are available for downloading by clicking on this link.

 
The March meeting of the Phoenix Chapter was held in conjunction with the EMC Society’s Board of Directors meeting.  Sixty-five people attended on a Friday night to socialize and to hear an excellent talk from Dr. Bruce Archambeault on grounding.  Photo by Steve Gerard.

Click Here for Summaries of Previous Meetings

[ About ] [ News & Info ][ Visitor's Centre ] [ IEEE Links ] [ IEEE Store ][ Search ] [ Online Pubs ]
 

Click here to access the L31 Reports for the Phoenix Section.