EMC, Safety Compliance & Design Courses, 2010

Switch-mode power conversion is an extremely noisy technology, and it is very difficult and costly indeed to suppress its emissions for compliance (and happy customers) unless good EMC design techniques are used from the start.

This course covers EMC design techniques to control emissions from all types of switch-mode power converter, at all power levels (from under 1W to over 10MW), from circuit design and PCB layout to packaging and installation, including:

• DC and AC motor drives for hybrid and electric vehicles
• DC and AC motor drives for domestic appliances, commercial and industrial sites, including steppers and servos
• AC power generation from renewable energy sources (PV, wind, water, tidal, etc) and batteries.
• Mains powered AC-DC power supplies and isolating DC-DC converters
• Non-isolating DC-DC converters
• Class D audio power amplifiers

Relevant for: All electrical, electronic and mechanical designers, and their managers, in all industries including: automotive; oil and gas; mining; renewable energy generation; railway; marine; military; aerospace; HVAC; industrial instrumentation & process control; professional audio, video and broadcasting medical; consumer; household; IT; telecommunications; leisure and entertainment (sports facilities, opera houses, etc.

Where functional safety or other risks (financial, mission, etc.) need to be controlled, relying solely on EMC immunity testing is TOTALLY INADEQUATE - no matter how high the test levels are cranked up. Conventional EMC tests:

• Ignore foreseeable faults and misuse, wear and ageing
• Overlook the fact that real-life environments have more than one EMI threat at a time
• Fail to consider the effect of the physical environment over the lifetime (shock, vibration, condensation, temperature extremes and cycling, etc., etc.)
• Disregard "emergent" behaviour (the system can be much more susceptible than the items of equipment it is made from)

Many engineers and project managers are unaware of the functional safety risks (or financial or mission risks) they are running by relying solely on EMC testing.

This course is based on the IEE/IET's new Guide (August 2008) on EMC for Functional Safety, and IEC TS 61000-1-2 Edition 2 (December 2008), the IEC's basic standard on EMC for Functional Safety.

Relevant for: Everyone in all industries where errors or malfunctions in their electronic or electrical products, equipment, systems or installations could increase the likelihood of a safety hazard arising, or financial loss, including high-reliability and mission-critical applications.

Because every type of system and installation now relies totally on the correct operation of electronic equipment - good EMC engineering practices are required to be used in all systems and installations to achieve acceptable uptime, product quality, and financial performance.

This applies to all buildings, sites, vehicles & vessels (road, rail, marine, aerospace, etc.), infrastructure (water, gas, electricity, transport, radio/telecommunications, internet, etc.), energy generation (gas, oil, electricity, etc.), commerce, leisure & entertainment, industrial automation and process control, retail, banking, government, military, security, science, healthcare, etc.,

Relevant for: Every engineer who is responsible for the uptime and manufacturing yield/quality of electrical/electronic systems and installations in all of the types of premises, sites, vehicles and vessels mentioned above, and their managers.

Close-field EMC probing is a number of very low-cost, quick and powerful techniques that provide huge amounts of help with controlling emissions and immunity in every stage of a product's lifecycle, from proof of principle, through design and development, to serial manufacture, site commissioning, maintenance, repair and upgrade.

Once you have learned how to use close-field probing, you will become much more efficient and wonder how you ever managed without it.

This course includes a world-renowned demonstration of emissions suppression techniques, plus the effective use of close-field probes with a very low-cost portable spectrum analyser. Why not bring your own product or prototype for probing as part of this demonstration, if we have time? (Smallish products, please, that only require a 230V mains supply.)

Relevant for: Everyone who has anything to do with electrical or electronic design and/or EMC, and their managers, in any industry or application area.

The EMC requirements of the current 3rd Edition of the medical EMC standard IEC 60601-1-2, and the very significant developments in its forthcoming 4th Edition. Risk analysis explained.

This course, is mostly written by Ford UK's well-known EMC expert Ayhan Gunsaya and presented by Keith.

Relevant for: All electronic designers, EMC testers, and their managers in the medical equipment industry. May also be of interest to people working in healthcare premises.

A practical grounding in the EMC design techniques that technology developments have now made essential for the financial success of electronic product manufacturers. Shows how to use well-proven methods to reduce time-to-market, quickly achieve compliance, improve reliability and reduce warranty costs.

Based upon the course that Keith teaches to post-graduate students on the Sensors and Electronic Instrumentation M.Sc. course at the University of Manchester, U.K.

A long-established and very popular course that is constantly being updated to keep pace with developments, and so is never the same from year to year.

Relevant for: All electronic and mechanical designers and their managers, in all industry areas including: automotive, medical, consumer, household, IT, telecommunications, instrumentation & control, professional audio and video, railway, marine, military, aerospace, etc.

Inexorable advances in semiconductor technologies make it essential to deal with EMC at PCB-level to achieve signal integrity, low cost, and to get to market quickly. Advanced PCB techniques.....

• Reduce size/cost by reducing or eliminating enclosure shielding
• Reduce interference to/from wireless communications (voice or data) and GPS
• Are required for high-speed clocks, Gb/s data and high-power DSP to work at all
• Reduce time to market, compliance costs and warranty costs
• Reduce the financial risks of using new technologies (e.g. 65nm digital ICs)

A long-established and very popular course that is continually updated to keep pace with developments in ICs. PCB design for EMC is constantly changing.

Relevant for: All electronic and PCB designers in all industry areas including: automotive, medical, consumer, household, IT, telecommunications, industrial instrumentation & control, professional audio and video, railway, marine, military, aerospace, etc.

A practical grounding in the safety design, assessment and testing required for compliance with Australian, European and international safety standards such as IEC/EN/AS-NZS 60950, 61010, 60601, 60335, and safety laws such as the EU's Low Voltage Directive (LVD), Product Liability and General Product Safety Directives, and Australian/NZ A-tick and electrical safety regulations.

There are many safety issues associated with the use of 230V mains power, but there are also many other safety issues that are important for products powered from low voltages, such as batteries. The safety standards themselves are not discussed in detail, as the focus is on design techniques.

Relevant for: All electrical/electronic designers and their managers, in all industry areas including: medical, consumer, household, IT, telecommunications, industrial instrumentation & control, professional audio and video, railway, marine, automotive, military, aerospace, etc.

• Review of the requirements in the 2nd and 3rd Editions of IEC 60601-1-2
• Review of the risk-based safety assessment required by the new 3rd Edition of IEC 60601-1, requiring the application of ISO 14971
• Why the 4th Edition of 60601-1-2 will be split in two parts: performance, and safety
• Towards the new performance requirements in the 4th Edition:
• The huge range of EM environments that some types of medical equipment are exposed to (e.g. homes, shopping, dentists, work in offices and factories, travel by road, rail, air, sea, etc.)
• The matrix of possible test requirements for emissions and immunity, depending on the anticipated user environment
• Towards the new risk-based requirements in the 4th Edition:
• Why a test-based approach cannot on its own ensure adequate safety over a medical equipment's lifetime
• What should be done instead (the state of the art in applying safety engineering to EMC)

• The physical basis of EMC (at radio frequencies)
• Saving time and money by using good EMC practices
• Digital design for EMC
• Analogue design for EMC
• Switch-mode power conversion design for EMC
• Communications design for EMC
• Choice of components for EMC
• EMC techniques for cables and connectors
• EMC filtering
• EMC shielding (DC to many GHz)
• EMC techniques for heatsinks
• Suppressing surge transients
• Suppressing electrostatic discharge (ESD)
• Suppressing electromechanical devices
• Integrating wireless communication devices (transmitter and receivers, including GPS)
• Some useful references

Based on feedback from previous year's courses, modules on mains harmonics, flicker, and immunity to power quality issues have been omitted and replaced with modules on: The Physical Basis of EMC, Heatsinks, and Integrating Wireless Communications/GPS. Also, PCB EMC techniques have been removed and are now covered only in a separate course

The EMC techniques now generally required for all PCBs:

• Design techniques to save time and money
• Segregation
• Interface analysis, filtering, and suppression
• 0V and power planes
• PCB-chassis bonding
• Power supply decoupling
• Transmission line techniques
• Layer stacking
• Some useful references and sources
• Advanced EMC PCB design and layout techniques:
• When do we need to use advanced PCB techniques?
• Silicon trends and their implications
• Rules of thumb, approximations, simulations
• Virtual design for SI and EMC
• Advanced segregation
• PCB-level shielding up to GHz
• Advanced interface filtering and suppression
• Advanced PCB-chassis bonding
• Advanced planes
• The totally shielded PCB assembly
• Advanced decoupling
• Buried capacitance
• Advanced transmission lines
• Differential transmission lines up to 10Gb/s
• Advanced layer stacking
• Microvia (high density interconnect) PCB technology
• Some final tricks
• Some useful contacts, sources, references

• What do we mean by "safe enough"?
• Doing hazards analysis and risk assessments
• Non-CE marking safety directives
• Complying with the Low Voltage Directive
• The new EMF requirements
• Using the most relevant safety standards
• Single-fault safety
• Electrical shock hazards
• Energy hazards
• Fire hazards
• Heat related hazards
• Mechanical hazards
• Other hazards
• Choosing and using components
• Wiring, supply and construction
• Markings and manuals
• Type testing (testing the design)
• Routine tests in serial manufacture
• Special national conditions
• Good safety engineering techniques not yet standardised
• Design and test for functional safety
• EMC for functional safety
• Some useful safety resources

This course covers:

• DC and AC motor drives for hybrid and electric vehicle
• DC and AC motor drives for domestic appliances, commerce and industry, inc. steppers and servos
• AC mains generation from green energy sources (PV, wind, water, etc) and from batteries.
• Mains powered AC-DC power supplies and isolating DC-DC converters
• Non-isolating DC-DC converters
• Class D audio power amplifiers
• All types of switch-mode conversion, including AC-DC, DC-DC, DC-AC, AC-AC
• EMC design techniques for circuits, PCBs, mechanical packaging, systems and installations, for converters of less than 1W to greater than 10MW.

CONTENTS:

• EMC design of AC-DC input rectifiers
• EMC design of chopper circuits
• EMC design of converters that use isolating transformers
• EMC design of AC-DC output rectifiers
• EMC design of PWM AC or DC outputs, for motor drive or renewable power generation
• Power Factor Correction - suppressing mains harmonic emissions
• Suppressing emissions of voltage fluctuations and flicker to the mains supply
• Dealing with Insulated Neutral ?floating? mains power systems (e.g. ships, offshore, etc.)
• Some useful references and further reading

CONTENTS:

• An Update on the Progress in Standardisation of EMC for Functional Safety
• A brief overview of the whole lifecycle and introduction to the IET's new Guide
• Management and planning
• Assessing the lifecycle environments (electromagnetic, physical and climatic, etc.)
• Risk assessment, and creating the EMC Requirement Specification
• Design and Realisation (i.e. manufacture)
• Verification technique (including testing) during Realisation
• Validation techniques (including testing) at the end
• Maintenance, Repairs, Refurbishments, Modifications and Upgrades

CONTENTS:

• Complying with the Fixed Installation requirements of the new EMC Directive, 2004/108/EC
• Complying with the new Lightning Protection Standard, IEC 62305
• Complying with the 2011 EU and UK Wiring Regulations (Electrical Codes, e.g. BS7671)
• Overview of the overall EMC control procedure
• Good EMC practices for general use
• Power distribution systems for EMC
• Improving power quality
• Galvanic isolation for EMC
• Routing send and return current paths together
• Segregation (zoning) of apparatus and their supplies
• The bonding ring conductor (BRC)
• Cable classification, segregation and routing
• EM Mitigation Techniques
• EM Zoning
• Mesh bonding and creating an RF Reference
• What to do if you can't use mesh-bonding
• RF bonding techniques
• The benefits of "earth loops" ("ground loops")
• Terminating cable shields at both ends
• Parallel earth conductors (PECs)
• Choosing and using filters
• Cable shielding
• Shielding for EM Zones
• Surge and Lightning protection
• Preventing corrosion
• Maintaining EM performance over the operational lifecycle
• Some useful references

CONTENTS:

• Demonstration of emission suppression methods and close-field probing
• Why not bring your own product or prototype for probing as part of this demonstration, if we have time? (Smallish products, please, that only require a 230V mains supply.)
• Close Field Probing Techniques (emissions and immunity) for every Project Stage
• The many uses of close-field probing
• Making your own close-field probes
• Commercially-available close-field probes and similar
• Current probes, pin probes, other types of probes
• Measuring radiated and conducted RF emissions
• Avoiding spectrum analyser input overdrive
• Portable analysers and "noise" probes
• Measuring radiated and conducted RF immunity
• Identifying structural resonances
• Detailed uses for close-field probing at every stage in a product's lifecycle, from proof-of principle through design, development and serial manufacture to maintenance, repair, upgrade and modification
• Some useful references

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