Electric products and compliance with EMC standards

27th August 2013

Nat Bowers

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Whitepaper

Electromagnetic compatibility standards exist to regulate the electromagnetic emissions and susceptibility of electronic systems. By law, compliance is required and in this article, CST AG showcases how EM simulation software can help strike the balance between EMC and competing design requirements in order to avoid costly development iterations.

By including EMC compliant design at an early stage, additional costly development iterations can be avoided later on down the line. Simulation allows problems to be identified and corrected early in the design process, before the first prototype is built.

Emissions

The geometry of a design and the placement of components both have major effects on the level of radiated and conducted emissions from a device. For example, the layout of reference conductors in an electronic system can have a signifi cant impact on their EMC performance, and so careful PCB design is needed to minimize the risk of EMC issues.

However, increasing PCB complexity means that potential problems can no longer be identifi ed by manual inspection alone. CST BOARDCHECK analyzes complete printed circuit boards quickly, checking the layout against EMC and SI design rules. Once potential problems have been identifi ed, the design can be modeled in a 3D full-wave simulator, CST MICROWAVE STUDIO, in order to perform a more thorough analysis. The 3D full-wave simulator can accurately calculate radiated EM fi elds from the device, which are often a problem in high-speed electronics, as well as couplings on the device that can lead to conducted emissions problems. Low frequency EMC from power electronics can also be analyzed through integration with the circuit simulator in CST DESIGN STUDIO.

Download and read the full CST Whitepaper below.