| Downtown Raleigh, NC Courtesy of GRCVB/visitRaleigh.com |
The 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility will be held Aug. 3-8 in Raleigh, NC. In addition to the extensive workshops, tutorials, experiments and demonstrations, technical paper presentations, and a commercial product exhibition, this year’s gathering will highlight the 150th anniversary of Maxwell’s equations.
A special symposium session will feature former IEEE MTT Society Distinguished Lecturer James Rautio speaking about the life and times of Maxwell. In addition, IEEE EMC Society President Dr. Robert Scully will discuss the continuing importance of the equations for today’s EMC engineers.
| Maxwell’s equations |
Also new this year, the 2014 International Conference on Signal and Power Integrity (SI/PI 2014) is embedded within the main symposium. One registration provides access to both programs. Because power and signal integrity are such critical aspects of high-speed designs, a separate embedded track supports the technical depth delegates require.
And, as in past years, education is a major theme. The Global EMC University will provide advanced education on a variety of topics relevant to EMC engineering. In total, approximately 20 hours of instruction will be provided from Monday through Thursday, running in parallel with the traditional technical sessions at the symposium. Attendees of all 20 hours of the lectures will receive continuing education credit as well as a certificate of completion.
Working groups and technical committees will contribute expert knowledge and assistance that can aid in the development of standards, evaluation of technical papers, and organization of symposia sessions. The meetings held during the conference generally are open to everyone.
Finally, because the conference is international, it is an opportunity for groups other than the EMC Society to hold collateral meetings in parallel with the symposium.
Workshops and Tutorials
The Fundamentals of EMC tutorial will run all day Monday, Aug. 4, and include the following topics: what is EMC and why is it important, basic EMC and the source of emissions, system-level grounding overview, shielding, and immunity/susceptibility. After the background material is covered, specific examples of the application of the theory will be discussed in sessions on printed circuit board design, important considerations in immunity/susceptibility, and SI/PI. The tutorial will conclude with an introduction to modeling for EMC.
A half-day tutorial Monday morning will address Understanding the Importance of Bore Sight Antenna Measurements. Another Monday morning tutorial, the Smart Grid EMC Update, will focus on the role of EMC within the smart grid. In particular, product immunity is key to ensuring reliable operation and will be approached through a number of related topics: new smart grid interoperability panel, SGIP electromagnetic issues working group activity, smart grid EMC standards harmonization, immunity for power station and substation environments, and the international view of smart grid EMC needs/activity.
The fourth Monday morning tutorial is EMC Issues for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and features topics such as an overview of EMC issues for unmanned aircraft systems, numerical modeling of EMC problems for UAVs, electromagnetic analysis of installed antenna performance on a UAV and assessment of co-site interference, electromagnetic compatibility of UAVs and sensors, stochastic characterization of electromagnetic vulnerability for unmanned aircraft systems digital avionics, and an overview of UAS standards development.
The final Monday morning tutorial, Nanotechnology Applied to EMC, will provide an introduction to nano-EMC plus cover the topics of broadband metrology at the nano-scale, graphene interconnects for the end of the roadmap CMOS and beyond-CMOS nanoelectronics, modeling and fabrication of graphene-polymer nanocomposites for electromagnetic shielding and radar absorbing materials, and frequency dispersion of magnetic composites and nanocomposites.
In addition to the continuation of Fundamentals of EMC, Monday afternoon’s tutorial schedule begins with Application of Reverberation Chambers, including separate presentations on the rationale for RC testing, an overview of reverberation chamber theory, using reverberation chambers for broadband (4G/LTE) immunity testing on devices, measuring intrinsic material shielding effectiveness using coupled reverberant cavities, complex cavity measurement techniques for precision metrology applications and aircraft/vehicle electromagnetic environment assessments, and wireless device testing in reverberation chambers.
Introduction to Medical EMC, another Monday afternoon tutorial, is particularly timely. The topics to be covered are an introduction to medical EMC, testing considerations, EMC aspects for implantable devices, testing for wireless medical devices, risk management, and a regulatory approval issues view from the FDA.
A third Monday afternoon tutorial is Recent Developments in EMC for Emerging Wireless Technologies. Presentations will include wireless interference: real-life impact and solution strategies, whole vehicle testing for EMC with complex wireless technologies in base models, a radiated two-stage method for MIMO throughput test, green communications for future cellular networks, and the PIM influence on wireless network.
The last Monday afternoon tutorial is Using CEM Modeling to Understand the Underlying Physics in EMC Problems. Several topics will be addressed, all aimed at ensuring a realistic relationship between an EMC model and the underlying physics: the importance of field visualization and model parameterization to test electromagnetic simulation results and identify the underlying physics behind EMC problems, low-frequency magnetic field shielding physics and discovery for fabric enclosures using numerical modeling, using modeling tools to understand radiation from multi-PCB systems with high-speed connectors, and investigation of CEM modeling issues using different solution approaches.
On Friday, Aug. 8, two full-day tutorials are planned. One of these, Introduction to Spectrum Engineering, involves both regulatory considerations and filtering to mitigate potential interference.
Friday’s other full-day tutorial is Electromagnetic Time Reversal with Emphasis on Lightning and Fault Detection.This tutorial will present an introduction to the main source location techniques used in lightning and fault location, the physical basis for electromagnetic time reversal, the application of time reversal to lightning location, and the application of time reversal to fault location.
Friday’s half-day tutorials begin with Basic EMC Measurements, an introduction to product immunity testing featuring basic measurement facilities, methods, and associated errors; the IEC approach to immunity test methods using the application of continuous RF disturbances; the IEC view of transient immunity testing; and high power electromagnetics test facilities and measurement methods.
EMC for Space Applications also is a Friday morning half-day tutorial. Systems used in space are subject to special types of EMC challenges: proper cable construction and shielding termination techniques, proper flowdown and tailoring of requirements for a given platform, space charging and electrostatic discharge, a systems approach to spacecraft EMC, integrated use of CAE/CEM tools for EMI/EMC/RF analysis and mission requirements verification, analysis of EMI in avionics power systems, and a statistical model to quantify maximum expected EMC in spacecraft and avionics boxes.
A third Friday morning tutorial is titled the EMC Consultant’s Toolbox, a practical guide to finding employment as an EMC consultant. The final Friday morning tutorial is Time-Domain Site VSWR (sVSWR) Method Above 1 GHz and Correlations to CISPR sVSWR. Recent advances in the theory and measurements of the time-domain site VSWR will be covered: considerations of using time-domain methods to improve site qualifications above 1 GHz, evolution of time-domain site VSWR and using statistical metrics to evaluate sites above 1 GHz, correlation of time-domain site VSWR to CISPR 16 Site VSWR and empirical validation of the time-domain method, practical experiences of using time-domain site VSWR to evaluate chambers, and techniques and methods in the statistical analyses of reverberation chambers and their applications in the site VSWR method.
In addition to the two continuing full-day tutorials, two other half-day tutorials and one half-day workshop will take place Friday afternoon. The workshop is Details of the First Practical Method for Risk-Managing EMC (or Achieving EMC for Functional Safety). It will incorporate an introduction to the risk management of EMC, a general overview of approaches, developments in all related IEC standards, special challenges for medical EMC standard IEC 60601-2, and discussions of the detailed design techniques and measures for increasing resilience against EMI.
Understanding Recent EMC Standards from the IEEE, a Friday afternoon half-day tutorial, will demonstrate the impact of the work of the EMC Society’s members. This agenda includes topics such as an overview of the process of standardization in the EMC Society; IEEE 299.1—Standard Method for Measuring the Shielding Effectiveness of Enclosures and Boxes Having Dimensions between 0.1 and 2 m; IEEE 1309—Standard for Calibration of Electromagnetic Field Sensors and Probes, Excluding Antennas, from 9 kHz to 40 GHz; IEEE 1642—Recommended Practice for Protecting Public Accessible Computer Systems from Intentional EMI; IEEE 1688—Standard for Module Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Testing; current and emerging EMC standardization projects, and the process of standardization in the EMC society including a comparison with other standardization bodies.
The final Friday afternoon half-day tutorial is System-Level Approaches to Design and Test for EMI Control—or how to minimize EMI concerns when multiple components are integrated. The tutorial topics will include EMI vs. EMC, systems-level perspectives for E3 and EMI control, EMC design considerations for high-speed interfaces in defense/aerospace systems, and “ground” in space.
Special Sessions
In addition to the special session on Maxwell’s equations, three more sessions dealing with general EMC and two on SI/PI are planned to run Tuesday, Aug. 5 through Thursday, Aug. 7.
Recent Research and Education in EM Information Security will be presented by the EM Information Leakage subcommittee of TC5 and deal with radiation of EM fields from communication devices.
Radio-Frequency Interference and Wireless EMC will focus on the EMC and noise interference issues affecting wireless electronic, computer, and telecommunications systems.
Nanotechnology in EMC, sponsored by EMC Society TC11, will focus on carbon nanostructures for next-generation nanointerconnects; crosstalk and signal integrity analysis of CNT/graphene-based interconnects; nanocomposites, nanomaterials, and nanodevices for EMC applications; measurement techniques for the EM/EMC characterization of nanomaterials and nanodevices; and modeling and simulation approaches for nanomaterials and nanodevices.
Numerical Methods for Signal and Power Integrity will highlight optimization of design structures, stochastic simulation, macro-modeling, and hybrid electromagnetic extraction and simulation.
Large-Scale Modeling for Signal and Power Integrity is sponsored by EMC Society TC9 and TC10. Working with small-scale EM models solved via tools such as Spice tends to limit assumptions, for example, about numbers of aggressors and an ideal ground. SI/PI engineers need EM solvers and simulation tools that can handle problems at a larger scale—part or all of the PCB—at the post-layout stage.
SI/PI Workshops and Tutorials
The Introduction to SI/PI Modeling and Design tutorial will feature five presentations on Monday morning: high-speed channel design considering loss, ISI, equalizer, and eye diagram; SI/PI/EMI issues and exploitation of CAE in high-speed electronic design; modeling and optimization of bond wire interconnects for high-speed applications using the M3-approach; EM modeling of high-speed interconnects for signal integrity analysis; and equivalent circuit modeling approaches for SI/PI analysis.
Advanced Topics in Signal and Power Integrity—Achieving 25 Gb/s to 100 Gb/s is a Monday morning workshop with an ambitious schedule intended to cover the broad range of challenges faced in the design of these very fast data rates.
Friday morning’s half-day tutorial is titled Essential Principles of Jitter and will explore what is jitter and both the theoretical analysis and the practical analysis of jitter.
Technical Papers
Two formats will be used for technical papers, which will be presented Tuesday, Aug. 5, through Thursday, Aug. 8. Oral briefings will use the familiar theatre-style setting with projected slides. Poster paper sessions will be scheduled for one hour, during which time the authors will be available to present and discuss their work.