Description

The goal of this course is to give engineers involved in developing hardware the best possible chance of passing EMC testing the first time. Through in-depth discussion, case studies, simulations, and live demonstrations of both fundamental EMC concepts and practical tips, tricks, and troubleshooting advice, students will walk away with confidence that they can identify where EMC problems are most likely to appear and mitigate them before they have a chance to cause issues.

This course addresses emissions, ESD, RFI, power, and self-compatibility. It covers components, Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), power electronics, grounding, and shielding. It will be useful no matter the application—whether the hardware needs to meet FCC, CISPR 32, ISO 11452, MIL-STD-461, or other requirements (or if it only needs to be self-compatible), this course will bear directly on what is needed to pass those tests.

The class is taught by an expert in the field in a practical problem/solution format with minimal math and theory. It emphasizes the most common problems facing designers of today’s high-speed digital and mixed digital/analog circuits and systems.

Course notes are included.

Who Should Attend:

Electrical, electronic, mechanical and systems engineers, technicians, EMC personnel, and technical managers could all benefit. No prior EMC knowledge is needed or assumed.

What You Will Learn:

You will learn tools, tips, and techniques from a full-time practitioner (Karen Burnham, NCE), whose only business is solving and preventing EMC problems. She has done troubleshooting for projects in the aerospace, defense, automotive, medical and consumer electronics industries. Even when the application changes, the underlying physics remains the same, and those common fundamentals are emphasized in this course.

Course Outline:

• Introduction
  • What is EMC?
  • Why is it so important?
• Defining requirements
  • What requirements will specific hardware need to meet?
  • Test like you fly (drive, etc.)
• Electromagnetic Resilience
• Antennas
  • What kind of structures can act like antennas?
  • Antenna physics
• Noise Sources
  • Switching noise
  • Time vs. Frequency Domain
  • Motor Noise
• Transmission Lines
  • How fields interact with transmission lines
  • How to implement transmission lines to prevent EMI
  • Cables
  • Board level
• Grounding
• PCB Layout
  • Stackup
  • Trace routing
  • Preventing crosstalk
  • Non-ideal behavior of components
  • Filtering
  • ESD protection
• Shielding
  • Transfer impedance
  • Skin depth
  • Bonding
  • Cabling
  • Enclosures
  • Board level
  • Magnetic shielding
• Troubleshooting
  • Philosophy
  • Equipment, including low cost and DIY versions
  • Techniques

Instructor(s):

Karen Burnham has worked in and around the aerospace, defense, automotive, and broader consulting world since 1996. She has a BS in Physics, an MS in Electrical Engineering, and a talent for translating EMC to English. She has managed requirements and test planning for NASA and the Dream Chaser spaceship and others. She has done troubleshooting on electric vehicles for Ford Motor Company and others. She has initiated innovative SBIRs and STTRs through government centers and worked on classified programs. She has consulted on projects across a wide swath of industries and sits on multiple international standards committees, landing her in her current role of Vice President of Standards for the IEEE EMC Society.

Ms. Burnham founded EMC United, Inc. in 2024 to focus on helping companies and hardware designers solve EMC problems, ideally before they even start. She believes that, far from being black magic, EMC can be understandable (and even fun!), and she hopes to spread that passion more widely.