EMI/EMC Computational Modeling for
Real World Engineering Problems

The world of EMI/EMC compliance has become more important than ever before due to the higher speed electronics in lower cost packages. The ‘old ways’ of using design rules, and then fixing the EMI problems after the product is built, are not acceptable in today's market place. Designs must be cost effective, and must pass regulatory requirements the first time through the design cycle.

There is a new set of tools available to the EMI/EMC engineer, which allows a more accurate estimation of the EMI/EMC effects of a system before that system is built. The old rules-of-thumb cannot be relied upon to ensure success. While the technology is not available today to completely analyze the entire system with a single model, separate parts of the system can be successfully modeled, and accurate and very useful results can be obtained.

This course provides a complete assessment of the various modeling techniques available today and more, importantly, provides a number of detailed examples of how to create models for a wide variety of disciplines. Radiated emissions, radiated susceptibility and ESD are all discussed and demonstrated with real-world problems. Validation of modeling techniques and modeling codes are discussed, as well as standard modeling problems to allow engineers a more complete evaluation of potential vendor software packages.

• Working EMI/EMC engineers who are interested in using the latest state-of-the-art tools to help meet product cost and schedule requirements.
• Managers and engineers who are interested in obtaining a better understanding of EMI/EMC computational modeling so they can better evaluate which commercially available software tool would best suit their needs.
• Developers of EMI/EMC simulations software who would like a clearer understanding of the real-world types of problems facing their customers.

Bruce Archambeault received his Ph. D. from the University of New Hampshire in 1997. His doctoral research was in the area of computational electromagnetics applied to real-world EMC problems. In 1981 he joined Digital Equipment Corporation and through 1994 had assignments ranging from EMC/TEMPEST product design and testing to developing computational electromagnetic EMC-related software tools. In 1994 he joined SETH Corporation where he continued to develop computational electromagnetic EMC-related software tools and used them as a consulting engineer in a variety of different industries. He recently joined IBM in Raleigh, N.C. where he is the lead EMC engineer, responsible for EMC tool development and use on a variety of products. During his career in the U.S. Air Force he was responsible for in-house communications security and TEMPEST/EMC related research and development projects. Dr. Archambeault has authored and co-authored a number of papers in computational electromagnetics, mostly applied to real-world EMC applications. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility and a Board of Directors member of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society. He is also a co-author of the book EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook (Kluwer Academic, 1998).

Colin Brench presently holds the position of Consultant EMC Engineer at Compaq Computer Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts. Over 13 years at Digital (now Compaq), his EMC design work has encompassed a wide range of products, including small desk top systems, large multiprocessor servers and networking systems. He has been at the forefront of EMC technology associated with the high speed Alpha processor. Prior to joining Digital, he worked at Applicon for six years where he was responsible for the EMC design of high performance workstations and their associated servers. During this time he developed a number of hybrids for ESD control on a custom LAN and various other interfaces. His experience has been widened even further with a small family EMC consulting business which specialized in custom PC expansions and configurations. He is a co-author of the book EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook (Kluwer Academic, 1998) and has authored over 15 technical papers. In addition he holds six patents for various methods of EMI control. He is a NARTE certified EMC engineer, a member of the IEEE EMC society and is active in TC-9 and ANSI ASC63 - SC1 committees.