New Chapters
The IEEE EMC Society is pleased to announce and welcome two new EMC Chapters:
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Austria EMC Chapter members, speakers and exhibitors shown left to right, front to back: Lamedschwandner (Seibersdorf Laboratories), Tiefenthaler (AKG Acoustics GmbH), Spaeth (EM Test), Foelkel (Würth Elektronik), Deutschmann (Infineon), Gleissner (Rohde & Schwarz), Ormazabal (deg), Ostermann (Uni-Linz), Sailer (deg),
and Winkler (TU-Graz). |
- South Africa, which was previously a joint MTT/AP Chapter, has extended their reach to also become an EMC Chapter. We wish Chapter Chair Dr. Riana Geschke and the entire South Africa Chapter great success. We’ll also look forward to seeing their first report in Chapter Chatter!
- Harbin (China) is the other Chapter that we are welcoming into the EMC fold. Harbin is a joint EMC/MTT/AP Chapter. Professor Qun Wu will be their Chapter Chair. We also wish the new Harbin Chapter great success and look forward to hearing from them soon in Chapter Chatter.
Austria
On April 23, 2009, the IEEE EMC Austria Chapter, in cooperation with the Institute for Electronics (TU-Graz) and the Seibersdorf EMC Test Laboratory, organized a well-attended “EMC Meeting 2009.” The one-day workshop was held at the University of Technology Graz with more than 60 people participating. Those in attendance included representatives from universities, research institutes, tests laboratories and industry. The aim of the workshop was to exchange knowledge within the EMC community. The technical program included seven presentations covering a wide variety of EMC related topics such as network analysis, EMC in integrated circuits, measurement and simulation technology and EMC aware filter design. The following topics where presented and discussed: Network Analysis (Rohde & Schwarz), Test for Immunity to Conducted Disturbances in the Frequency Range 0 Hz to 150 kHz (EM Test), Overvoltage Protection (Würth Elektronik), Near-Field Measurements: Possibilities and Limitations (Seibersdorf Laboratories), R & TTE Directive (AKG Acoustics GmbH), EMC on Chip-Level (University Linz), EMC Filter Design (Infineon, TU-Graz). During the lunch break and after the presentations, the attendees used the opportunity for discussions and to visit a small exhibition where different companies were showing their products and services.
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Over 60 people participated in the one day EMC event
organized by the Austria EMC Chapter. |
During the coffee and lunch break, the attendees used the opportunity to visit a small exhibition. |
Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg
Prof. Tzong-Lin Wu of the National University of Taiwan and a Distinguished Lecturer (DL) of the IEEE EMC Society gave a presentation on June 18. He attended the EMC Europe workshop on materials in Athens, Greece, and then gave a lecture in Rome, Italy.
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Tzong-Lin is shown
enthusiastically giving his lecture. |
Professor Tzong-Lin,
Distinguished Lecturer of the EMC Society, fields questions at a June presentation to
the
BeNeLux Chapter in Eindhoven. |
Chapter Treasurer Cees Keyer did a great job in making arrangements for Prof. Wu to also speak to the Chapter during his visit to Europe. Due to the fact that the Chapter is made up of three different nations (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, “BeNeLux”), we decided to have the lecture centrally located in Eindhoven to accommodate all the nations. About 20 people attended the lectures by Tzong-Lin Wu, which where interesting. The subject of his first lecture was “Power Integrity Design for High Speed Circuit Packages.” The second lecture topic was: “Broadband Common-mode Filters Design for GHz Differential Signals Using Defected Ground Structures.” His first talk was a good overview of the problems which arise when you are clocking integrated circuits at 7 GHz or more with a power supply of 0.7 volts. So, power noise and ground bounce will be a problem. His talk on how and where to place decoupling capacitors addressed this issue as well as which models are used to predict power noise margin problems. Tzong-Lin also gave some predictions on how and where in your PCB design you should put capacitors to decouple switching digital circuits. His second talk was on common mode filters; he showed a genius way to control common mode noise by awkward structures on the PCB. He improved noise reduction by 20 to 30 dB on a few GHz bandwidths by creating slots in the PCB ground layer. These H and U shaped slots reduced the common mode noise with 20 to 30 dB’s and that might be convenient to just remove that “pole” in your spectrum. On Saturday, June 20, the professor and his wife had to leave for Taipei, Taiwan at 22:00 hours, so there was plenty of time to visit some museums and other places of interest. They were able to visit the famous industrial heritage site, Zaansche Schans. They also visited a clog maker and a working windmill (originally built in 1646 and rebuilt in 1782 after a fire). Then, they visited the small village of Marken, where the inhabitants still don traditional clothing. After a lunch and a beer, they were taken to Schiphol Airport for a proper farewell. He and his wife left the Netherlands tired but having thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Notes from Professor Tzong-Lin’s lecture are available on the Web at: https://www.emc-esd.nl/smartsite8305.htm?goto=8313
Chicago
Secretary Jerry Meyerhoff reports that the Chicago EMC Chapter’s recent activities included hosting an informational booth at the
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| Frank Krozel (far right) moderates the “Panel of Experts” during Chicago’s
MiniSymposium in April. |
Magnetics 2009 Conference on April 14–15. Jack Black, Andrea Spellman and Jerry Meyerhoff promoted the Chapter’s programs and fielded general questions on EMC from the crowd of primarily electric motor engineers. On April 22, the regular Chapter meeting was kindly hosted by the ITT Technical Institute, Mount Prospect site. The new location drew our usual attendees plus many students from ITT. The complimentary pizza dinner was very much appreciated. Chaman Bhardwaj of Microvolt.com and Chapter Publicity Chair was the featured speaker. He outlined EMC regulations and best design practices, an especially excellent topic, for first-timers such as the ITT students. We also awarded our third scholarship of $1,000 to Louann Devine, an MSEE student at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) who is studying EMC. Louann is an Agilent Applications Engineer and puts her advanced education to use every day. This particular instance was in remembrance of Ray Klouda’s wife, Joyce, who was very supportive of his participation in and leadership of the Chapter. We concluded the spring season with the 11th annual MiniSymposium on April 22 at the Itasca Country Club. Despite a weak economy, we had another great turnout of 23 supportive exhibitors and over 80 attendees. Our perennial organizer, Frank Krozel, Electronic Instruments Associates, polled the crowd, finding that 30% were new to EMC, thus fulfilling our educational mission. The program started with EMC fundamentals by Tom Braxton, Shure Brothers. Roger Swanberg, DLS, spoke on design for reducing EMC emissions. Jerry Joseph, AR-Worldwide, described bulk current injection testing for immunity. Ron Bethel, ETS-Lindgren, addressed antenna, current clamp, LISN and field probe calibration. Several companies sponsored coffee breaks and a bountiful sit-down lunch enabled interaction between attendees and the exhibitors. The day was punctuated by multiple prize raffles, Chapter recognition awards and the “EMC-opoly” game competition. We closed with the ever popular “Ask the Experts” panel. Many of our Chapter members are attending Austin’s EMC 2009 Symposium, see you there! Please check www.emcchicago.org for future events.
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| The Chicago Chapter booth at the Magnetics 2009 Conference was staffed by Jack Black (left), Chapter Chair (DLS) and Jerry Meyerhoff, Chapter Secretary. |
Louann Devine of Agilent and UIC grad student receives the Chicago Chapter scholarship award from Ray Klouda of Elite. The award this year was presented in fond remembrance of Ray’s wife, Joyce. |
Char Andres receives a certificate
of appreciation for extensive contributions to graphic design at the 2005 IEEE International Symposium on EMC in Chicago. Tom Braxton, chair of that symposium, was on hand to present the certificate. |
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| Chaman Bhardwaj (Microvolt.com), Chapter Publicity Chair, presents an EMC introduction at the ITT Technical Institute. |
Roger Swanberg, DLS, describes emissions at the Chicago Chapter MiniSymposium. |
Dallas
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| Speaker Tom Mullineaux (left) receives a certificate of appreciation from Bob Queen of the Dallas Chapter. |
Tom Mullineaux speaking to the Dallas Chapter in April regarding the use of multiple antennas to create uniform RF fields across the face of large EUTs. |
Mike Hollingsworth of the Dallas Chapter reports that a meeting was held on April 21, 2009, with Chapter Chair Joe Stanfield presiding.The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Richardson, Texas. The meeting began with Chapter business including the reading of the previous meeting’s minutes, discussion of job openings and job seekers. The meeting was attended by 11 IEEE members and 7 guests. Vice-chairman, Bob Queen, introduced the speaker and program for the evening. Tom Mullineaux gave a presentation entitled, “Aspects of Achieving 10 v/m Field Uniformity over 1 GHz with Single, Multiple and Cassegrain Antennas.” Tom discussed the various methods of generating a uniform field on the face of a large EUT. The ideas varied from using multiple antennas to using a single antenna and a curved reflector to widen the field.
Germany
During March and April, the working group that has been established to prepare the application to host the 2015 IEEE International Symposium on EMC started its work. After a first phase of several phone calls and email exchanges, it came time to visit the pre-selected venue, the city of Dresden. On 16 April 2009, Frank Sabath (Chapter chair), Jan-Luiken ter Haseborg (Chapter vice-chair) and Heyno Garbe (Chapter past chair) met with
Hans-Georg Krauthäuser and Karl Heinz Gonschorek from the Dresden University of Technology. After a welcome at the Dresden University of Technology and a discussion of formal matters, the group changed the meeting location. A short trip through the beautiful historic city brought the group to the Maritim Hotel, located at the bank of the river Elbe. Both the International Congress Center of Dresden and the Maritim Hotel are situated in the heart of the city, only a few steps away from most sights of Dresden. The Maritim Hotel Dresden is located in the so called Erlwein warehouse, which the architect Hans Erlwein erected in the year 1913/14. Recently the building has been renovated into an extraordinary hotel. The urban developmental connection from the Erlwein warehouse to the Congress Center is achieved by a high canopy. The liaison of the Hotel and the Congress Center is justified by their motto, “conference and comfort under one roof.” After a meeting with a manager of the Maritim Hotel and a thorough visit of the Congress Center, all five agreed that the venue is well suited for the IEEE International Symposium on EMC. Meanwhile, the German IEEE section, the city of Dresden and the state of Saxony confirmed to the German EMC Chapter their support for the project. The Region 8 Chapter Coordination Subcommittee recognized the work of the German EMC Chapter with the Region 8 Chapter of the Year 2008 Award in the large Chapter category. Frank Sabath, the Chapter chair, accepted the award during the 92nd IEEE Region 8 committee meeting that took place 25–26 April 2009 in Venice (Italy).
Huntsville
The Huntsville Chapter of the IEEE EMC Society is continuing another successful year. We’ve had two great meetings in April and May. A summer break will be taken for June and July before picking up scheduled meetings in August. The meeting on April 16 was held at ADTRAN in conjunction with a two-day seminar presented by Henry Ott of Henry Ott Consultants. The seminar was sponsored by TSC and co-sponsored by the local Chapter and ADTRAN. After a full day of teaching the seminar, Mr. Ott provided an energetic presentation of “Dipoles for Dummies” to the local Chapter and EMC community. The meal for the meeting was sponsored by Agilent, represented by Mike Kirk. A new record was set for meeting attendance with 89 total attendees – 37 of those in attendance being IEEE members. The “Dipoles for Dummies” presentation provided a simple, insightful, and intuitive discussion of how a dipole antenna works, and how the operation is related to the common-mode radiation from a product. Once the antenna theory is understood, controlling the common-mode radiation becomes a much easier task. Attendees came away with a better understanding of dipole antenna theory, along with knowledge of why understanding a dipole antenna is so important to EMC engineering. All of this was accomplished without using mathematics or writing a single equation. Mr. Ott answered questions from the attendees and was available after the meeting to discuss questions “one on one”. Comments several attendees ran along the lines of “now I get it!” or “this makes sense of those emag classes.” The Chapter truly appreciates the efforts Mr. Ott put forth to
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Henry Ott presented a two-day EMC
class in Huntsville, Alabama in April
to a very attentive audience. |
After Henry Ott (right) gave an insightful presentation on antennas, Doug Parker (left), on behalf of the Huntsville Chapter, presented him with a certificate and an official NASA space pen. |
Tad Harris of ADTRAN (left) and Steve Jones of NASA (right) got the jump on every else in the dinner line at our April meeting. Thanks to Agilent for sponsoring the meal. |
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| Lon Brolliar (left) of TSC Phase IV presents Doug Parker (right) of the Huntsville Chapter with a $1,000 donation to the Huntsville Chapter for their support in hosting the two-day Henry Ott EMC class. |
The Huntsville EMC Chapter donated $1,000 to help fund the local IEEE Section’s 125th anniversary celebration. The event was held at the US Space & Rocket Center and included robotics demonstrations by local high school and university competition teams. |
Michael Hopkins, of Amber Precision Inc, spoke to the Huntsville Chapter in May on the benefits of ESD susceptibility scanning. |
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| Doug Parker (left), on behalf of the Huntsville Chapter, presents Jim Reynolds (right) of the UAH Library with more than $1,000 in EMC engineering books which have been put into circulation and are also available to the public. |
support our local Chapter. The next meeting was held at ADTRAN on May 21. There was an insightful presentation “ESD Susceptibility Scanning” by Mike Hopkins of Amber Precision. Amber Precision also sponsored the meal for the meeting. Mr. Hopkin’s presentation discussed the ‘disconnect’ between EMC work, chip vendors and test systems. At issue is the standards for chip level tests are based on hard failures, while system level ESD tests not only monitor for hard failure but performance degradation. Product manufacturers often try to impose system level ESD test methods such as IEC 61000-4-2 on active components, when there may be no viable way to insure adequate performance. The presentation gave great insight into the issues and offered some potential methods for evaluating products. The Huntsville Chapter has three technical meetings planned for the remainder of the year. August will feature a presentation from Tektronix on real-time spectrum analysis. The September meeting will be the IEEE EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer, Sergiu Radu, Ph.D., NCE. We will have our annual business meeting in October, followed by an additional technical meeting in November that will coincide with the IEEE EMC Society Board of Directors three day meeting that will be held in Huntsville. The Board of Directors is providing Mr. Elya Joffe as the guest speaker for the November meeting. In general Chapter business news, due to the success of our bi-annual EMC event, the Chapter has funds available to support the local community. So far this year, three items have been funded. The Chapter purchased a collection of recommended EMC publications (total value of over $1,000) and donated these books the local University of Alabama Huntsville Library. The Library is open to the public, so these books are now available to the general EMC engineering community in Huntsville. The Chapter is also involved with the local Huntsville Area Technical Society (HATS). This organization represents all of the various technical organizations in the Huntsville area. HATS maintains a STEDTRAIN program to provide funds to the local school community and teachers for the advancement of scientific studies. The Chapter donated $1,000 to HATS for the STEDTRAIN program. The Huntsville EMC Chapter also donated $1,000 to the Huntsville IEEE Section to help fund the Section’s IEEE 125th anniversary celebration. The event was held at the US Space & Rocket Center and included robotics demonstrations by local high school and university competition teams. Over 450 people attended the IEEE 125th anniversary celebration. The Chapter is continuing to look at other opportunities to support the local technical community and advance EMC engineering in Huntsville, AL. This year’s IEEE EMC Society Huntsville Chapter Professional of the Year award recipient was Paul Stover, NCE for all of his hard work and continuing support of the local Chapter. Paul is a past Chapter Chair and currently serves as a Member At Large for the Chapter. The Chapter would also like to thank TSC Phase IV of Huntsville, AL for their $1,000 donation to our local EMC Chapter. This was a result of their sponsoring the two-day Henry Ott class in April. To see everything going on with the Huntsville Chapter, check out our website at https://ewh.ieee.org/r3/huntsville/emc/.
Italy
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| Speaker Tzong-Lin Wu (right) and Antonio Orlandi are shown in L’Aquila after the Italy Chapter meeting, a much anticipated event following the devastating earthquake in the area. |
IEEE EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer Tzong-Lin Wu gave an excellent presentation to the Italy Chapter. |
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| Francesco De Paulis, Tzong-Lin Wu, Antonio Orlandi, Vittorio Ricchiuti and Leo Raimondo (from left) visited following the Italy Chapter meeting. Francesco and Leo are students of Professor Orlandi’s Lab. Vittorio Ricchiuti is the Head of the SI Group in Technolabs (the company that is generously hosting Professor Orlandi’s Lab following the earthquake). |
On April 6, 2009, at 03.32 am, the City of L’Aquila (Abruzzo, Italy) and its University were stricken by a devastating earthquake. The severedamage to the Department of Electrical Engineering also involved the UAq EMC Laboratory of Prof. Antonio Orlandi. Thanks to the generosity and cooperation of companies such as Technolabs S.p.A, Computer Simulation Technology, Ericsson, Agilent, BTicino, SoPWorX, Enginsoft and the Missouri University of Science and Technology, as well as the dedication of the Labs’ Ph.D. students, a part of the research and educational activities of the Laboratory could start less than one month after the earthquake hosted by Technolabs in L’Aquila. In light of a long lasting scientific cooperation with the IEEE EMC Society DL Program, Prof. Tzong-Lin Wu from the Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering National Taiwan University came from June 15–17 to visit the Laboratory. He gave two seminars on power and signal integrity and their impact on EMC. The seminars have been very well attended by some 25 graduate and undergraduate students plus local engineers. We at the UAq EMC Laboratory in L’Aquila were very happy to hold this event because we considered it as a sort of kick-off of a new era after the severe earthquake.
Melbourne
Ed Kirchner, Chapter Vice Chair, reports that the Melbourne, Florida EMC Chapter recently hosted two EMC Society Distinguished Lecturers. In February, they were honored to be the first Chapter to host Dr. Ji Chen. An enthusiastic audience gathered on the Melbourne campus of the Florida Institute of Technology for his lecture, “EMC/EMI Issues in Biomedical Research.” The audience included a good mix of EMC Chapter members, Florida Tech students, and other interested individuals. After enjoying some pizza and cold drinks, Dr. Bruce Crain, the Melbourne Chapter Chair, called for the crowd’s attention and introduced our guest. Dr. Chen gave an overview of the important work that he and his colleagues are doing to apply computational electromagnetic (CEM) analysis techniques to the study of the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation on humans. Dr. Chen described how the interactions between electromagnetic signals and biomedical systems lead to safety considerations for medical devices and patients, and how CEM analysis is proving to be a valuable tool for modeling the interactions. He presented an overview of the low and high frequency modeling techniques that his team has developed, including data which validates the CEM techniques by comparing test case results with results obtained through other well accepted analytic methods. Of particular interest was Dr. Chen’s description of the challenges involved in developing accurate models of a “family” of humans. Dr. Chen then presented four sample model cases: 1) a safety evaluation for a pregnant woman walking through a typical airport security metal detector, 2) a thermal and temperature evaluation of a pregnant woman exposed to a typical MRI field, 3) the effects on implantable devices (e.g. a pacemaker) within human subject models under MRI coils, and 4) the interactions between vehicular mounted antennas and bystanders with implantable medical devices. The results led the audience to two conclusions – first, Dr. Chen’s work is an important addition to the study of the interaction between EM fields and the human body, and second, there are some valid concerns about possible damaging effects, under specific circumstances, on humans from some common EM sources, like MRI units and metal detectors. At the conclusion of Dr. Chen’s lecture, a lively question and answer session took place. One of the more interesting discussions concerned the role that the choice of wiring for biomedical implants, i.e. individual wires or coax, plays in the coupling of EM fields within the body. Dr. Chen is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston. He has received both an outstanding teaching award and outstanding junior faculty research award from the UH College of Engineering. His research group also received the best student paper award at the 2005 IEEE EMC Symposium and the best paper award from IEEE APMC conference in 2008. His lecture had the unique quality of being both technically informative and entertaining, and the Melbourne Section thanks him for taking the time to visit us. On a stormy evening in May, the Melbourne EMC Chapter was honored to host Dr. Sergiu Radu, another EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer. Dr Radu’s presentation was titled, “Engineering Aspects of Electromagnetic Shielding.” The meeting was also held at Florida Tech. The active Melbourne EMC community was well represented in the audience in spite of the weather. Dr. Radu is currently Principal Engineer at Sun Microsystems, leading the EMC Design group in Menlo Park, California. His lecture covered a variety of shielding topics, including basic shielding concepts, materials used for shielding, chassis resonances, shielding integrity problems (seams, joints, apertures, and perforation patterns), aperture coupling and shield grounding. Dr. Radu’s presentation was an excellent blend of electromagnetic theory and practical application. In the opinion of one audience member, one of the most important points taken from the lecture is that a strong theoretical background is most beneficial when problems arise. It can help focus the troubleshooting, and keep the EMC engineer from taking a haphazard approach to fixing a problem that wastes time and money. Dr. Radu received a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (Electronics) from Technical University of Iasi, Romania, and until 1996 he was an Associate Professor at the same university, involved in Electromagnetic Compatibility teaching and research. From 1996 until 1998 he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Missouri-Rolla, as part of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory. In 1998 he joined the EMC Engineering group at Sun Microsystems. He holds seven US patents for EMI reduction techniques in electronic systems and has published more than 50 papers in symposia, magazines, and research journals. He is a reviewer for the IEEE Transactions on EMC. The Melbourne Section thanks the EMC Society for sponsoring the Distinguished Lecturer program. Many thanks go to both Dr. Chen and Dr. Radu for visiting the Melbourne Chapter, and they heartily recommend these Distinguished Lecturers to other EMC Chapters!
Milwaukee
Chair Jim Blaha reports that the Milwaukee EMC Chapter had a very busy winter quarter. The EMC Chapter hosted presentations at the Milwaukee Section’s three engineering colleges. Topics included “EMC as a Part of Product Development”, “Professional Presentation Skills” and “Topics in Sales Engineering.” Featured with photos are the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering. With the anticipation of spring, the Milwaukee EMC Chapter held its 9th annual EMC Seminar.
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| Milwaukee’s 2009 EMC Seminar Committee (from left): Teresa White of LS Research, Dr. Bruce Archambeault (distinguished speaker) and Jim Blaha of Ingenium Testing. |
The featured speaker at this year’s event was Dr. Bruce Archambeault. Even with the down turn in the economy, this year’s seminar hosted 170 attendees. Preparations are already under way to host a special 10th EMC Seminar in the spring of 2010. The EMC Chapter also participated in the Milwaukee Section Student Poster Competition event. The winning poster out of 18 was from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The winning Student Research Project was titled: “Dielectric Spectroscopy using Multi-Array Electrodes.” This event was held at the Miller Inn which offered all free beer and pizza. A special toast was made to all of the students that participated and who will be soon joining us in industry. Ein Prosit!
Oregon and SW Washington
The Oregon and SW Washington Chapter hosted an all day Colloquium on April 13th. They held the event at the University of Portland who graciously provided them with superb facilities. Dr. Eric Bogatin, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, provided the group with four highly interactive presentations on EMC and Signal Integrity. The post event feedback was very positive from both attendees and vendors. There were 25 attendees and nine vendors present. Dr. Bogatin “rewarded” all Q&A participants with chocolates delivered from the podium via air! Some key “SignalIntegrity “to-do” items were shared by Dr. Bogatin, including:
- Don’t share! (no cross-talking)
- Do have separation anxiety!
- Place your emphasis on the correct things!
- Do count your losses
- Resistance is NOT futile
- Keep the “L” out of it.
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Colloquium participants had a Wii bit of
fun in the
vendor display area! |
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| Attendees at the Oregon-SW Washington’s April 13 EMC Colloquium gather for breakfast in the vendor exhibit hall. |
Dr. Bogatin gives the opening remarks during his presentation
at the Oregon-SW Washington Colloquium in April. |
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Participants thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Bogatin’s presentation
during his April presentation at Oregon-SW Washington’s
EMC Colloquium. |
Attendees at Oregon-SW Washington’s April Colloquium
enjoy lunch and networking. |
On May 20, the Chapter welcomed Mike Schnecker, Product Marketing Manager – Signal integrity for LeCroy. He talked about the differences between the standard definitions of the fall and rise times of a signal and those used in the IEC/EN 61000-4-x standards for defining the surge, ESD and fast transient waveforms. He explained how modern oscilloscopes can be configured to correctly measure the rise and duration of surge, ESD and fast transient waveforms when performing test generator qualification measurements. He also explained how features such as waterfall displays, sequencing, and more can be incorporated to allow a single acquisition sequence to make multiple different measurements (signal rise time, duration, repetition frequency, burst period and burst length of a fast transient generator, for example) and to evaluate pulse-to-pulse consistency. The Oregon-SW Washington Chapter is working on a summer social for July or August. Also planned is the Chapter’s traditional Holiday dinner social for December 14 to coincide with the Christmas ships on the Columbia River event.
Rock River Valley
Jamal Shafii, Chapter Chair, reports that the IEEE Rock River Valley Section (RRVS) gathered for a successful meeting in March. The meeting was held at Ingenium Testing in Rockford, Illinois. Dr. Sergiu Radu, a current Distinguished Lecturer of EMC Society, gave an interesting analytical and practical presentation on the topic of electromagnetic shielding. A tour of the host facility followed the presentation. Dr. Radu emphasized shielding dependence on the following parameters: source polarization, source impedance, source-to-aperture distance, and antenna-to-enclosure coupling strength. He compared two analytical models to solve electromagnetic shielding, namely, the Schelkunoff and Kaden circuit theory. The Schelkunoff impedance method is limited to analyzing shielding effectiveness for infinite plane shields; however, the Kaden circuit theory can be used in deriving closed form formulas for symmetrical structures with orthogonal coordinates such as plane parallel, spherical, cylindrical, elliptical, parabolic, toroidal, etc. In the end, he stressed that shielding is mostly about material property and thickness of the shield and to a lesser extent about the geometry. He also discussed the reciprocity nature of shielding, that is, if the shield is passive and its material exhibits linear electric and magnetic properties, the shielding parameters are identical for both emissions and susceptibility. Dr. Radu also presented the effect of polarization, thickness, single layer vs. double layer on the shielding effectiveness of perforated materials such as honeycombs. For example, two-layer honeycomb at 90 degrees has much higher shielding effectiveness than a single layer non-plated honeycomb. He also discussed shielding effectiveness of slots with different slot shapes. As far as coupling from internal source to aperture in an enclosure is concerned, for near field direct coupling, the most important parameter is the source to aperture distance. He emphasized that the distance of the source to the closest aperture should be at most 3 to 5 times the longest dimension of the aperture for any appreciable coupling. For the apertures that are not in the path of direct coupling to an internal source, he noted that most of the energy of the source are in the lower order resonance modes of the enclosure hence from a practical point of view, this means that the most dangerous internal resonances will be below 1 GHz.
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| Attendees of the IEEE RRVS meeting in Rockford in March 2009. |
Dr. Sergiu Radu during his presentation to the Rock River Valley Chapter. |
Jim Blaha, Ingenium Vice President for Marketing, provides a tour of the facility to those attending the Rock River Valley Chapter meeting. |
San Diego
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Gabriel Sanchez |
A well known member of the San Diego EMC Chapter, Gabriel (Gabe) Sanchez, passed away on July 1, 2009. Gabe was the president and founder of Advanced ElectroMagnetics, Inc. a subsidiary of Orbit/FR. Gabe received his Associate of Arts Degree from Los Angeles Harbor College in 1972 and his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Technology from California Polytechnic University, Pomona in 1974. After a short time as a Quality Assurance Specialist for the Defense Contract Administration, he joined Emerson & Cuming in their Gardena, California plant. After four years with Emerson & Cuming, he moved to San Diego to join Plessey Microwave in the Kearney Mesa area. Upon the closure of the anechoic product line at Plessey, Gabe established AEMI in 1980. Gabe’s contributions to AEMI along with its initial ownership consisted of technical design, sales and marketing for AEMI’s absorbers and anechoic chambers lines. Gabe authored numerous technical papers on absorbing materials and anechoic chamber design. Gabe also holds three patents for absorber design, chamber design and measurement techniques. “Gabe”, as he was known to those in the EMC Society, was a friend to many and will be missed.
Santa Clara Valley
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| In April, Darren McCarthy of Tektronix spoke to the Santa Clara Valley Chapter about “Real-time Technology Applied to Time-Domain EMI Diagnostics.” |
On April 7, the Santa Clara Chapter met at the Applied Materials Cafeteria to hear an excellent presentation by Darren McCarthy of Tektronix entitled, “Real-time Technology Applied to Time-Domain EMI Diagnostics.” Darren McCarthy is the Worldwide RF Technical Marketing Manager for Tektronix. Darren has worked extensively in various test and measurement positions for the last 201 years including R&D EMC engineer, R&D management, product planning, and business development. During his career, he has also represented the US on several IEC Technical Committees for international EMC standards. He holds a BSEE from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Darren’s presentation noted that historically developed methods of measurements have limitations in today’s complex signal environments. Spread spectrum clocks can mask tonal signals making it difficult to discover and diagnose signal-in-signal events. Impulse signals can have low probability of detection, and may lead to varying results using traditional EMI detectors. This presentation focused on the definition of real-time technology and the definitions of 100% probability of intercept applied to spectrum analysis.
Seattle
The Seattle EMC Chapter held a half day technical seminar at the new Microsoft campus in nearby Redmond, Washington. Dr. Bruce Archambeault, IBM Distinguished Engineer at IBM in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina spoke on the topic “Incorporating Affordable EMI/EMC Software Tools into the Real-World Design Process.” The seminar started at noon with a hearty lunch and ended at 5:00 pm with a software demo to support the material presented. For the presentation in between, Bruce shared that there are many different levels of software tools and vendor information can often be confusing. His presentation discussed the different level of tools, where they can be employed within a typical design process, and the expected benefit they can provide. Of course, some tools are very inexpensive while other tools are very expensive. Attendees learned that often these tools perform the same function and only the ‘prettiness’ of the user interface defines the cost. In addition, some tools can be relatively straightforward, such as PCB EMC rule checking software, but more complex full wave simulation tools can also be useful during design discovery. Even within the set of available full wave modeling tools, the costs vary from around $1,000 to well over $70,000. The presentation discussed the relative merits of the various levels of software, and showed how significant design improvements can be achieved even with less expensive tools. Finally, as with any modeling software, the importance of validating the model results was stressed. Measurements are not always possible for this validation; fortunately, Bruce provided helpful alternative methods to perform this validation, both for expensive and for inexpensive software tools. Following the presentation, as a special treat, local favorite Gene Garat of Moss Bay EDA (the company is named after a small but charming bay on Lake Washington) was on hand to demonstrate some modeling tools in real time. Many thanks to the lunch sponsors, including AR, Anritsu, ETS-Lindgren, HV Technologies, Rohde & Schwarz, and Syntek for the excellent and generously stocked lunch buffet. Thanks also to Kitty Tam of Microsoft and Dean Shipman of Syntek for their tireless efforts in organizing a fantastic half day of real-world EMC in the wonderful, new Microsoft conference room. It was tempting to visit the Microsoft store nearby! Leo Smale of Lionheart Northwest, Chapter Treasurer, ably took care of the finances for this event while Pat Andre of Andre Consulting, Chapter Secretary, handled the event promotion and registration. Dennis Lewis of Boeing, Chapter Chair, was on hand to introduce the speaker and keep things moving while Janet O’Neil of ETS-Lindgren, Chapter Vice-Chair, handled logistics and social events for the speaker while he was in town (see photos). Thanks to all for organizing a great afternoon, to the attendees for their participation, and most of all to our tireless speaker for sharing his expert knowledge and tireless enthusiasm for EMC modeling. As the Chapter has moved to holding quarterly half-day meetings, the next event will be a two-day workshop on wireless topics at the Hilton Hotel in Bellevue. This will be a joint event with the Seattle MTT, AP, Computer and ComSoc Chapters on October 30–31. Visit www.ieee-seattle.org for more information.
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| Joel Lachance (far left) and Kitty Tam of Microsoft were the hosts for the Seattle Chapter meeting in June. Chapter Chair Dennis Lewis of Boeing invited them to attend the EMC 2009 symposium in Austin, Texas and brought along copies of the advance program. |
Speaker Bruce Archambeault (left) visited with Mosin Mondal, a student at the University of Washington, at the Seattle Chapter meeting. Mosin had never seen his photo in the EMC Newsletter as the winner of the President’s Memorial Award at EMC 2008 – until the June meeting! |
| Seattle Chapter Vice-Chair Janet O’Neil and Bruce Archambeault enjoy the local seafood at the Crab Pot restaurant. The Seattle Chapter officers make sure out of town speakers spend a little time enjoying the city when they come to visit. |
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| Those who know Bruce Archambeault well understand his interest in sailing whenever he’s near water. While in Seattle for the Chapter meeting, Bruce enjoyed sailing on the Puget Sound. The captain of the boat (left) was happy to let Bruce take the helm! |
Chapter members network following the June meeting at the new Redmond campus of Microsoft. The meeting room was in the same building as the Microsoft store! |
Singapore
Richard Gao Xianke, Secretary of IEEE EMC Singapore Chapter, reported on the activities of their Chapter this past quarter. On 10 February 2009, the Chapter held an administrative meeting and a new executive committee of eight members was formed. The new Chapter officers are: Chairman, Dr. Liu Enxiao of the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC); Vice Chairman, Dr. Deng Junhong of the TUV SUD PSB Pte Ltd; Secretary, Dr. Richard Gao Xianke of the IHPC; and Treasurer, Dr. Chua Eng Kee of the IHPC. Several Chapter members and industry guests participated in the EMC Laboratory Open House 2009, which was organized by the Singapore ST electronics (Info-Comm Systems) on 27 March 2009. “EMC solutions and services” and “reverberation chamber” presentations were given at the open house along with a lab tour of the EMC test facilities. During the first half of this year, the Singapore EMC Chapter organized a series of well-attended seminars and distinguished lectures. In February, three professors from the USA, China and Canada, respectively, delivered several talks to the local EMC community. Professor Raj. Mittra from the Pennsylvania State University gave a speech entitled, “All about metamaterials and small antenna performance enhancement – separating the facts from fiction.” Professor Wen-Yan Yin from the Zhejiang University, China, delivered a talk entitled, “EMP2 – electromagnetic pulses and electromagnetic protection.” The visiting professor of A*STAR IHPC, Prof. Wolfgang J. R. Hoefer, from the University of Victoria, conducted a series of talks on the topics of metamaterials and electromagnetics. In March, Professor Jin-Fa Lee from the Ohio State University gave a seminar entitled, “25 years of progress and future challenges in fast, iterative, and hybrid techniques for large-scale electromagnetic modeling.” In May, Professor Raafat Mansour from the University of Waterloo, Canada, gave a presentation on “RF MEMS Switches and Switch Matrices.” On 4 May 2009, two IEEE distinguished lectures were given. Prof. Zhi-Ning Chen and Prof. Er-Ping Li, both from the A*STAR, Singapore, delivered two talks entitled, “Design Considerations of Antennas for MIMO Systems – Antenna Engineering Perspectives” and “Radio-Frequency Applications of Nanotechnology: Nano-Plasmonics towards a New Generation of Extremely-Integrated Circuits for Electronics, Computing and Communication,” respectively. Twenty-four people including 16 IEEE members and 8 guests attended the lectures. Dr. Deng Junhong, Vice Chairman, attended the IEEE Singapore Section second general meeting on 9 June 2009. The main discussion of that meeting centered on the “IEEE Singapore Section share in conference.” The Singapore EMC Chapter is planning to organize a one-day workshop for local EMC engineers in September 2009. The Chapter is also sponsoring the Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC) 2009 which is one of the biggest technical events in the Asia-Pacific region and will be held in December 2009 in Singapore.
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| In March, several members of the Singapore Chapter participated the EMC Laboratory Open House 2009, organized by Singapore ST Electronics Pte Ltd., including (from left) Dr. Richard Gao Xianke, Secretary of the Chapter;
Dr. Deng Junhong, Vice Chairman; Dr. Liu Enxiao, Chairman; Dr. Chua Eng Kee, Treasurer, and Mr. Timothy Foo. |
Professor Er-Ping Li from A*STAR, Singapore
delivered a technical talk at the Nanyang Technological University on May 4, 2009. |
Southeastern Michigan
On May 21, 2009, Lee Hill of Silent Solutions gave a dynamic presentation for the Southeastern Michigan 2009 EMCFest. Participants with an engineering background were able to earn 0.6 CEU (Continuing Education Units) or 6 PDH (Professional Development Hours) certificate for just an extra $15. Participants learned how to better use ferrites for EMI control in PCBs and cable assemblies. Q, DC bias, resonance, material, and construction in relation to applying ferrites was covered. Lee taught how to more effectively use a spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, directional couplers, current probes, LISN, etc. to demonstrate the characterization of passive RF components such as cables, adapters and antennas. Our favorite part of Lee Hill’s presentation involved examples from Lee’s seventeen years of solving EMC conundrums and the scientific method he used to solve those problems. We had a great lunch, amazing cookies and an awesome old fashioned ice cream social along with many networking opportunities. We are looking forward next year’s EMCFest!
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| EMC Fest 2009 Speaker Lee Hill (left) is shown with Southeastern Michigan Chapter Chair Scott Lytle. |
Kazutaka Iwamoto staffs his Kikusui exhibition at SE Michigan’s EMC Fest 2009. |
At SE Michigan’s EMC Fest 2009, Marty Gubow and Tom Holmes from Agilent Technologies chat with John Suriano, Ph. D. (from left) of Nidec Motors. |
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| SIBCON attendees enjoy the sites after hours on a chilly March evening in Tomsk, Russia. |
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| Attendees during the opening remarks at the Tomsk Chapter’s 8th Biannual Siberian Conference on Control and Communications (SIBCON) in March. |
Tomsk
Oleg Stukach, of the Russia Siberia Section and Mino Stallo, Italy Section, report on the activities of the Tomsk Chapter. The eighth bi-annual Siberian Conference on Control and Communications (SIBCON) was co-sponsored and organized by the joint Tomsk EMC Chapter and took place in Tomsk, Russia, on March 27–28, 2009. The meeting was also sponsored by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research with technical co-sponsorship by the Russia Siberia Section. Papers about various scientific topics were presented at the conference. Various problems related to communication and control theory, subsurface radar and remote sensing, semiconductor materials, sensors, and electron devices, with emphasis on both theory and applications, were reviewed. The conference as a whole demonstrated a continuing interest in analysis and control methods for the subject problems. Central topics of this symposium have traditionally been the field of ultra-wideband systems of communications and ground penetrating radar. Micro sensors have furthermore received particular attention thanks to new developments in higher integration of microsystems models and tools. It is difficult to point out general trends in the conference topics, but with the growing interest in theoretical models and numerical methods, the role of computers is becoming more and more important. The major goal of the conference was to bring together researchers from various fields, in order to present advances in the state-of-art of communication and control theory and technology. A unified perspective in this interdisciplinary field of advanced research was also achieved. The real value of SIBCON is its role as a platform for personal contact and direct information exchange. The symposium has moreover proved to be particularly rewarding to every participant, in as much as most of them showed interest in sharing experiences and opinions in a cultural and historical perspective. That brought additional value to the conference which has been memorable. Tomsk, an ancient town in Siberia, has witnessed many exciting events in Russian history and still plays a very important role in its scientific and cultural life. The conference banquet was held in the beautiful “Scientific Palace”, located in the historical part of the city. The participants had the opportunity to enjoy the historical sites, as well as the beauties of the city, including its wooden architecture, its museums, and Voskresenskaya Mountain, where the stone in memory of the city foundation stands. From there you can see the whole city, and enjoy both its modern high buildings and the dated wooden ones which stand as memory of the famous “Dark Days.” We are very pleased that the SIBCON conference has already gained the status of a significant and well-known event in Siberia. All information about SIBCON can be found on our home page: https://www.comsoc.org/tomsk/sibcon/. We hope you might consider participating at the next SIBCON which will be held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in 2011. Please join us. We are sure you will not be disappointed.
United Kingdom and
Republic of Ireland
Paul Duxbury, Chairman, reports that their Chapter held a “Basic EMC” seminar at the University of Westminster on 13 February 2009. The seminar was co-sponsored by the Education, Circuits and Systems, and Instrumentation and Measurement Chapters. Following a brief introduction from Paul Duxbury (EMC-S UK&RI Chapter Chair, CST UK Ltd) as to why EMC is necessary, there was a presentation from John Davies (Blackwood Compliance Laboratories) introducing the often complex subject of “EMC Standards and Testing.” This talk was followed by a presentation from Tim Williams (Elmac Services) on “Design Factors Affecting EMC.” Finally, there was a great presentation from Doug Smith (D C Smith Consultants) on “EMC Lab Techniques for Designers”. Doug was unfortunately unable to be present at the meeting so he presented his talk via the web from his office in the US. The meeting was well attended by about 40 people. Following the meeting, a number of attendees gathered for a social/networking event in a local pub, which is always a pleasant way to end the day. Our next meeting, themed “Military EMC,” was held on April 1 in conjunction with TRaC Global at the National Waterways Museum in Gloucester. Steve Hayes (TRaC) gave a very informative presentation on the CE Marking requirements for military equipment and how they relate to the various other CE marking directives. He also discussed the new CENELEC guide of the application of the EMC Directive to military equipment. The next presentation was on “TEMPEST and EMC” from Ian Humpherson (Storm EMC) which introduced many us of to this phenomena. Finally, we had a talk on “International Military EMC Standards” from Alan Hayward of QinetiQ which overviewed some of the work being done to try and harmonize the various international E3 standards. Following each presentation, and at the end of the day, lively discussions ensued. This was another well attended meeting with about 30 people present. EMC
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