What Is an EMC Engineer?

What is an electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) engineer? It seemed like a simple question when it was posed to me during the National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers (NARTE) pre-exam session at the Denver EMC Symposium. When the inquisitive gentleman caught up with me later and asked the question again, I discovered there is more than one answer—depending on how the question is asked or, better yet, who is asking it.

At first, I thought the gentleman was asking what qualifies a person as an EMC engineer. Maybe he needed to hire an EMC engineer and was looking for some help with the job description.

Was he someone whose job duties now included EMC and was wondering where he fit in? He could have been one of those engineers questioning whether EMC is a distinct engineering discipline. Or was he trying to determine the difference between an EMC engineer and a NARTE EMC engineer?

To really define who or what an EMC engineer is, you need to look at the many aspects of the field of EMC. The duties and skills needed by EMC engineers vary from job to job and company to company.

If you work for a big company, the compliance department may be divided into several sections, each responsible for a particular phase of a project, such as EMC design, product-testing, and regulatory groups. The engineers in each group, although all in EMC, would have different job functions and could require different skills to complete their part of the project.

In a smaller company, the EMC engineer may handle design, test, and the regulatory issues to get the product to market. If the engineer works for an EMC test lab, he may only need to deal with product testing and regulatory compliance issues. If the lab offers design services, he also may need to know some aspects of EMC design.

Due to the complex nature of today’s electronics, most engineers concentrate their efforts on one or two specific fields, such as hardware or software or digital or analog. But unlike the digital engineer who may only need to be an expert in digital design, EMC engineers must be versatile and familiar with different disciplines of engineering to properly perform their tasks.

To do proper EMC design, not only must we know what levels of emissions we need to meet, but we also must understand the digital and analog circuits as well as the power supply circuitry and the EMC-related mechanical assemblies. Without a good, basic understanding of how the circuitry works, we run the risk of fixing the product at the cost of interfering with its operation. The EMC designer also must be familiar with the applicable regulatory issues and how the product will be tested.

How did most EMC engineers become cross-trained? Until recently, very few engineering schools taught EMC—or even discussed it. Most EMC engineers do not start in EMC; we bring our skills from other disciplines. An EMC engineer’s background might include RF, digital, or analog design or computers. Another popular route into EMC is serving in the military.

If the question is focusing on the difference between an EMC engineer and a certified engineer, the answer is simpler. Both a NARTE-certified engineer and an EMC engineer with a professional engineering license (PE) have a paper trail of their expertise.

Is a NARTE-certified engineer better than a noncertified engineer? That really depends on the engineer’s abilities.

But with a NARTE-certified engineer, you do know that the person working on your project has a minimum of nine years of documented experience in the field of EMC. The NARTE certification shows that an individual has met the qualifications for EMC engineers set down by his peers and the industry.

But to answer the gentlemen’s questions, for the most part, a good EMC engineer is familiar with a broad range of electronic engineering disciplines. On one hand, he is a specialist; on the other, he is a well-versed electronic engineering generalist.

About the Author

David A. Case, N.C.E., is the senior compliance engineer responsible for worldwide product approval at Aironet Wireless Communications. He holds NARTE certifications in the fields of telecommunications, EMC, and ESD control; serves on the board of directors for NARTE; chairs the IEEE EMC Society Representative Advisory Committee; and is a member of the Executive Committee for the United States Council of EMC Labs (USCEL) and the Part 15 Coalition. Aironet Wireless Communications, 3875 Embassy Parkway, Akron OH 44333, (330) 664-7396, e-mail: [email protected].

December 1998