Chapter Chatter

Todd Hubing

Very few college freshmen decide to study electrical engineering so that they can design kitchen appliances for a living. In order to stress the importance of high-frequency circuit design and EMC, I used to tell my students that they would have to be familiar with these subjects unless they planned to get a job designing toasters. A few years ago, in a previous Chapter Chatter column, I further speculated that within five years even toasters would be sophisticated high-speed microprocessor-controlled devices. Well, you can imagine my surprise and excitement when I saw an ad in the Rolla Daily News for a “smart” toaster with a “microchip” brain.

We are already a two-toaster family. We have one toaster that we use infrequently and another (a gift) that is stowed somewhere in the deepest recesses of our kitchen cabinets. We didn’t need another toaster, but I thought I’d stop by the local Wal-Mart and look at one. They had several “smart” toasters on display and I checked to see if any of them had FCC Compliance labels. They didn’t. Of course, home appliances are exempt from FCC emission requirements, but I began to wonder if a smart toaster would interfere with nearby radio or television receivers. Fifteen minutes later, I was the proud owner of a new “smart” toaster.

As soon as I got it home, I plugged it in and used a portable FM radio to scan for signs of unintended EM emissions. I was surprised to find that there was absolutely no toaster-induced interference anywhere in the entire FM band. I threw the toaster in the car and took it to the laboratory. A quick scan revealed that other than a small amount of low-frequency broadband emissions, the toaster was dead quiet!
I pulled off the knobs, bent some metal tabs, and removed the plastic housing to reveal the tiny printed circuit board that housed the microchip “brain”. With a few more snips and cuts, I was able to remove the board from the toaster and power it up on the bench. The “brain” was a small dot with 5 leads. Probing just above the surface of the dot and along the 5 leads confirmed that this was an analog device. The microchip “brain” was not a microprocessor at all. I’m still not sure exactly what it is, but clearly the design of this toaster did not require any special expertise in EMC or RF design. At least for now, students who skip the RF and EMC courses in the undergraduate EE curriculum can still find gainful employment as toaster designers.

But times are changing. Consumers are demanding more from their home appliances. Before long, knobs and dials will be obsolete.
Homeowners will tell their appliances what to do and the appliances will do it. Don’t try to sell me a half-witted toaster with a 5-leaded brain. I want a toaster with the latest high-speed digital technology. I want a toaster with a fast RISC processor and gigabytes of RAM. I want a toaster that communicates with toast- making professionals via the Internet. I want a toaster that knows who I am, knows what I want, and knows how to make toast just the way I like it.
The toaster on our kitchen counter has a dial with numbers from 1 to 5. A higher setting is supposed to give you darker toast. I don’t pay any attention to the setting because no two slices of toast ever come out the same. Our new “smart” toaster is supposed to be more consistent, but I can’t really say for sure. These modern appliances are a lot easier to take apart than they are to put back together.

Central New England

John Clarke reports that the September meeting of the Central New England chapter was a joint meeting of the EMC and Product Safety Societies. The featured speaker was Wayne Hunter of GE Medical Systems in Milwaukee. The title of Wayne’s presentation was “Electromedical Device EMC, Product Safety and the FDA GMP.” The presentation provided information about EMC requirements for electromedical device manufacturers. EMC is now required for these devices under section 820.30 of the FDA Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). GMP will require all electromedical manufacturers to provide information regarding the intended EMC environment as well as verification data for new products. The impact of the new FDA GMP on product safety was reviewed. The new GMP went into effect on June 1, 1997 with a transition period until June 1, 1998. This requirement directly affects finished device manufacturers and indirectly affects their subcontractors.

Additional information was also presented in regard to FDA design controls included in section 820.30 of the code of Federal Regulations, Part 21. The question of changes that may be required in current CE marking and related issues was also discussed.

The December meeting featured Tim D’Arcangelis, an EMC Consultant from Oakdale, New York. Tim’s topic was “RF Power Requirements For Radiated Immunity Testing.” The presentation centered around the IEC 61000-4-3 standard as it imposes the most demanding radiated immunity test requirements. All other standards may be considered subsets of this comprehensive IEC test. The presentation discussed power amplifiers, the anechoic room, harmonic power, antenna performance, the fallacy of radiated immunity testing below 80 MHz and safety considerations. The written procedure for the standard is considered deficient and this can lead to gross testing errors.

Wayne Hunter of GE Medical Systems (L) was the featured speaker at the Central New England Chapter's September meeting presided by Chapter Chairman Mirko Matejic (R).

Chicago

Steve Laya reports that the December meeting of the Chicago Chapter featured a “Comparison of TEM Cells, GTEM Cells and Anechoic Chambers” presented by Chase EMC. The presentation reviewed the benefits and limitations of these test environments. The Chicago chapter continues to have strong attendance at meetings. They have been experimenting with sending the meeting notices and meeting reminders using email. They have found that they can use email to remind everyone of the meetings a day or two in advance. Also, they plan to use email to inform the membership when a meeting needs to be cancelled due to weather or for other reasons. Contact mmartin@dlsemc.com to be added to the email list.

Germany

Markus Petirsch reports that there was a meeting of the German IEEE EMC Chapter in Hannover on November 19th. The main topics of the chapter meeting were the reports of the chair and vice-chair, the reports of the Numerical Field Calculation Group and the Education Group, and the election of the chapter board.

The chairman, Dr. Sturm, thanked chapter members for their activities like the organization of symposia and presentations last year. The vice-chairman Prof. Garbe announced the success of the EMC Symposium in Guenzburg organized by the German IEEE EMC Chapter and the German VDE. In 1998, the German IEEE EMC Chapter will be a sponsor of a series of presentations planned for May and June at the University of Hannover. Prof. Mrozynski reported for the working group “Numerical Field Calculations” which created 14 configurations and problems to benchmark different calculation tools. The simulations of the numerical problems will be performed in small groups. Prof. ter Haseborg summarized the activity of the “Education” group. The main activities were restricted to locations near Hamburg last year. He suggested that similar activies be sponsored in other cities.

New board members were also elected at this meeting. The old chairman Dr. Sturm retired and is now the past-chairman. The chapter would like to thank Dr. Sturm for his activities. The new Chairman is Prof. Garbe. Prof. ter Haseborg was elected Vice-Chairman. The Educational Activities officer is now Dr. Dancau. The new Technical and Scientific Activities officer is Mr. Petirsch. Prof. Gonschorek was elected as Treasurer. The officers of the Work group for Standards are Mr. Harms and Mr. Moehr. Prof. Mrozynski was re-elected as officer for Numerical Field Calculations Workgroup and Dr. Dancau is the officer for the Education Workgroup.

Israel

November and December were very active months for the Israel EMC Chapter.

Israel Chapter Officers (left to right) Eli Milshtein, Vice Chairman, Elya B. Joffe, Chairman, and Moshe Henig, Secretary, under the banner stating "Welcome to National Quality Week Activities, 14-19 September 1997."

IEEE President, Dr. Charles (Chuck) Alexander, visited Israel by the invitation of Israel IEEE Section Chairman, Dr. Anthony Weiss. On November 17, a meeting of all IEEE Israel Section Officers and Chapter Chairmen with the IEEE President took place at the Tel-Aviv University. The next day, the Israel IEEE EMC Chapter sponsored a visit of the IEEE President, his wife and delegation to Telrad, a Hi-Tech Telecommunications Company, and a sponsor of the Israel IEEE EMC Chapter. The President and delegation were welcomed by the Vice President of International Marketing and later were met by the President of Telrad. Later, the President and delegation were invited to visit the super-modern production line, where many of its products, later found in telecommunication centers worldwide, are manufactured. Following the visit, a Certificate of Appreciation was presented to the President by the Israel IEEE EMC Chapter.

Dr. Alex Axelrod, Israeli Chapter member, is show demonstrating "Electrical Fast Transients/Bursts" at the Workshop held in the Israeli Institution of Standards.

The December meeting was a full-day workshop on EMI Control Devices and Techniques sponsored by Telrad. Participation in the meeting was great!

There were over 80 attendees, of which over 30 were IEEE members.

Participants arrived from places as far as 100 km from Tel-Aviv.

After a short welcome by Chapter Chairman, Elya B. Joffe, a welcome address on behalf of Telrad was given by Mr. Reuven Rabinovitch, Vice President for Quality Management at Telrad. In his presentation, he highlighted the policy of Telrad to design EMC into its products, and thus the importance of familiarizing all design engineers in the company with EMI control techniques. This is exactly the objective of the EMC Chapter in Israel in holding such workshops - increasing the awareness of industry to the importance and benefits of EMI control “from the start”.

Following the welcome address, elections for the Officers of the Chapter for the year 1998 took place. Elya B. Joffe was re-elected as Chapter Chair. Eli Milshtein was re-elected Vice-Chair. Moshe Henig was re-elected Secretary/Treasurer. Dr. Alex Axelrod was elected as the new Technical Activities Officer. Dr. Jacob Gavan was elected Student Activities Officer.

We wish good luck and success to all newly and re-elected officers, and look forward to yet another fruitful and active year.

Following the elections, a brief summary of the annual activities was presented by the Chairman, Elya Joffe, followed by an announcement of future activities in Israel and abroad. Special emphasis was placed on MELECON’98 and EUROEM’98 which will take place in Israel in 1998. After this introduction, the following technical presentations were given: “RFI Filter Connectors for Military and Commercial Applications”, by Mr. Avi Inbar of Bar- Teck; “Active Power Line Filtering”, by Mr. Nehemia Niv and Haim Neerman of Actil; “Combined E3 Mitigation/Protection”, by Mr. Tino Nackson and Amir Cohen of Amtech; “EMC Considerations in Grounding Design on a Printed Circuit Board”, by Dr. Alex Axelrod of EMI Test; “Lightning as a Source of RFI”, by Dr. Itzhak Israeli of Lotan Engineering; “Analysis and Design of Transient Suppression Circuits using Pspice,”by Mr. Moshe Shechter of Rafael/ADA; “From the Diary of a Clinic Engineer”, by Dr. Alex Vilenski of Rambam Hospital; and “RFI Skirt in Cellular Systems”, by Mr. David Peso of Telrad.

MELECON’98 (IEEE Mediterranean Electro-Technical Conference) will be held on May18-20, 1998, in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Chapter members were very busy in the last few months assisting in the review process of the abstracts and summaries which were submitted from many countries. Over 15 papers in the field of EMC were submitted, and eight were approved, from several countries, especially in Region 8.

The Chapter Officers held a Steering Committee meeting following the Chapter meeting at Telrad to discuss preparations for the IEEE International EMC Symposium to be held in Israel in May, 2003. An agreement has been reached with the National Committee of URSI, Commission E (EMC) to co-sponsor this Symposium. Additional Chapter meetings and activities are scheduled for1998.

Information may be found on the Web Sites of the Israel IEEE Section: https://www/eng.tau.ac~il/ ~ajw.ieee.html. Again we encourage IEEE members from the Middle East, in particular from Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA) who wish to participate in our activities, to contact the Israel EMC Chapter Chairman who will welcome all wholeheartedly.

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Chapter had the pleasure of Dr. Lothar (Bud) Hoeft’s company as he tutored some 35 attendees on the basics of shield transfer impedance at the January meeting. Bud is an independent EMC consultant and Certified EMC Engineer who resides in Albuquerque, NM. He presented the basics of shield transfer impedance and numerous measurements of everything from connector backshells to spiral wound shielded cables using vacuum deposited aluminum on mylar. He spoke of the effects of torque on connectors and how it affects shielding effectiveness—more torque, lower impedance.

Attendees came away with an understanding of the “characteristics” of a shield transfer impedance curve (i.e. what to look for—dc resistance, diffusion break frequency, and square root of frequency term). The talk lasted for 2-1/2 hours and most of the attendees were still interested at the end. The audience was given a chance to “escape” when the overhead projector light bulb burned out. Several EMC engineers rushed to correct the problem, but very few left!

Edna and her staff at The Lakes in El Segundo, where the meeting was held, whipped up wonderful teriyaki chicken and baked codfish dinners complete with all the fixings. Those who reserved early and showed up on time did not go hungry. We expected to lose a few attendees due to the “rain”, but we actually ran out of food as several additional people showed up at the door. Fortunately, Edna whipped up something else to keep the late comers happy.

For information on the Los Angeles chapter, please contact Ray Adams at 310.662.7878 or e-mail at r.k.adams@ieee.org

Oregon (& SW Washington)

The Oregon and Southwest Washington Chapter is alive and well during its second year of existence. Officially, the chapter is within the jurisdiction of the Oregon Section, concentrated near the Portland metropolitan area, which extends to Southwest Washington. We have regular attendees and even an officer from SW Washington and hence our long chapter title.

Oregon EMC Chapter Meeting "Fun With Fourier" Lecture Series by Franz Gisin.

The chapter has continued the enthusiasm from its inaugural year. Attendance at chapter meetings has consistently exceeded 30 people, with expectations that the membership will steadily increase as more people become aware of our existence. We have been fortunate to have had high caliber lecturers. Mr. Franz Gisin’s “Fun with the Fourier Series” presentation on October 1 lived up to expectations. (I have included a picture for proof. Note that all eyes are focused on the presentation!!) On October 30, Mr. Art Wall from the FCC gave an update on US/EU Mutual Recognition Agreement details. Mr. Wall showed that even government representatives can have some fun as he not only partook in the chapter’s Halloween Hat contest, but was the unanimous winner!!!

In November, Mr. Dan Hoolihan provided information on updates to the ISO/IEC Guide 25 lab accreditation guidelines. The presentation was very audience participative. In fact, things livened up even more during the question and answer period. It became apparent that what was important to this audience were the details of “how to pass an ISO/IEC Guide 25 EMC laboratory quality certification audit.” Mr. Hoolihan came well prepared and pulled out a set of slides from his back pocket and proceeded speaking for an additional 30 minutes!

Note: All eyes focused on Mr. Franz Gisin's exciting presentation!

The chapter is excited about co-hosting a Vendor Exhibition on EMC Products and Services on June 29 in Portland, Oregon. The event will be held in conjunction with an Electromagnetic Compatibility (ANSI ASC C63) EMC Measurement Uncertainty Workshop and ANSI ASC C63.4 Workshop on the Measurement of Radio-Noise Emissions sponsored by the US EMC Standards Corporation in cooperation with the American National Standards Institute, Accredited Standards Committee C63 (EMC). For those of you interested in these workshops, please sign up and come visit the beautiful Northwest June 29 - July 1. Contact Henry Benitez, Chapter Chairman, for more information at phone 503.627.1217 or e-mail at henry.w.benitez@tek.com

Ottawa

Gary Wong reports that the speaker at the December meeting of the Ottawa chapter was EMCS Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Todd Hubing. The presentation was titled, “An EMC Engineer’s Guide to Electromagnetic Modeling.” Dr. Hubing presented an overview of various commercial and non-commercial software packages marketed to EMC engineers.

Philadelphia

Richard Haynes of Richard Haynes Consultants was asked to give an after dinner talk at the October meeting of the Philadelphia chapter. The presentation was abstracted from the two popular courses: “Executive Summary: EMC/EMI/ESD Related to Corrosion and Materials Reliability Issues” and the more detailed technical course. The members were so interested in the subject matter that the talk had to be terminated after one and a half hours.

San Diego

The December meeting of the San Diego Chapter of the IEEE EMC Society featured Mr. Henry Osgood (Chapter Vice Chair) who discussed spectrum analyzer performance. This discussion was very well received by the local EMC members and presented an analysis of spectrum analyzer performance features and their relative merits in spectrum analyzer applications. The items covered included frequency and phase modulation, resolution issues, amplitude issues, display resolution, spectral purity, deviation accuracy, sensitivity, functions of a preselector, onscreen dynamic range and measurement error values.

Audience participation was encouraged and thought-provoking questions were entertained.

Seattle

Art Wall of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), spoke at the October meeting on the “Status of the United States-European Union Mutual Recognition Agreement.” The meeting was held on the evening of October 30, at a restaurant in downtown Bellevue, just east of Seattle. This being the night before Halloween, the chapter added a ghoulish air to the evening by providing Halloween candy on the tables and suitable decorations. In fact, the speaker surprised the audience by donning a crazy wig and witch’s hat when he was introduced! Mr. Wall spoke about the current status of the United States-European Union Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA). He elaborated on the steps being taken to implement the Agreement. Sectors covered included telecommunication equipment and electromagnetic compatibility, notably electrical safety, recreational craft, pharmaceutical GMP and medical devices. Mr. Wall also addressed the recent and proposed changes to the FCC equipment authorization program. Northwest EMC Inc. generously sponsored the cost of the dinner so a good time was had by all. Boo!

Seattle Chapter speaker Art Wall of the FCC (C) enjoys a lighter moment with Northwest EMC's Jerry Page (L) and Kitty Tam (R). Northwest EMC sponsored the Halloween theme dinner prior to the presentation. Note the spider and web on Jerry's shoulder!		Hosts at the November Seattle Chapter meeting included Pat Andre (L) and Mark Darula (R) of CKC Labs in Redmond. Speaker Dan Hoolihan (C) is clearly enjoying his visit to the rainy Pacific Northwest!

In November, Dan Hoolihan of TUV Product Service, New Brighton, Minnesota spoke on “A Comparison of the Third and Proposed Fourth Editions of ISO/IEC Guide 25: General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration.” The Fourth Edition of ISO/IEC Guide 25 was circulated for review and comments the first half of 1997. Mr. Hoolihan’s presentation compared and contrasted the 1990 third edition with the draft fourth edition. Paragraph by paragraph comparisons were made between the two versions of the Guide and differences/additions between the two editions were highlighted. Comments from reviewers of the 1997 draft were discussed. Implications on testing lab accreditation were emphasized. This evening meeting was held at CKC Labs in Redmond. CKC Labs and Lindgren RF Enclosures provided free pizza and soft drinks. It is still being debated among the chapter officers if the free pizza or the excellent speaker was the bigger draw for this meeting. (Just kidding Dan!)

Washington Laboratories, Ltd. of the Washington DC/Northern Virginia Chapter lent administrative support to the EMC Measurement Uncertainty Workshop and ISO/IEC Guide 25 Workshop held on October 22-24 in Linthicum, Maryland. Signing in are Bill Lubitz (L) of Harley Davidson Motor Company and Richard Schmidt (R) of Yazaki North America		Member Services Director Todd Hubing (R) actively promoted membershipin the IEEE and EMC Society at the Wireless EMC Forum on October 27 and 28 in Dallas, Texas. This event was sponsored by the University of Oklahoma's Center for the Study of Wireless EMC. The program attracted representatives of the medical and automotive electronics industry, such as Poul Andersen of Chrysler (L) and Jim Polonis of the Southwest Research Institute (C).

Southern Maryland

Wayne Devereux reports that during 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Southern Maryland Communications, Computers and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Chapter held 12 technical and business meetings, once every month of the year. The meetings were held regularly on the last Monday of every month, with dinner meetings held at the Roost restaurant on the 1st month of each quarter and brown-bag-lunch meetings held at Veda Incorporated on the 2nd and 3rd month of each quarter. Regular meeting notices were issued by postal mailings, e-mail and newspaper articles. All meetings in 1997 were very well attended throughout the year, averaging around 15 people for the dinner meetings to 35 people attending the lunchtime meetings, and increasing at each meeting throughout the year.

During 1997, our Chapter began to schedule IEEE Distinguished Lecturers for our 1st month of the quarter dinner meetings. For our October dinner meeting, Dr. Pasupathi Subrahmanyam, from Lucent Technologies, was scheduled to visit the Southern Maryland area to lecture on Embedded Systems. Unfortunately, our first Distinguished Lecturer had to cancel his arrival due to the flu, however, a business meeting was still conducted.

Future technical and business meetings for the first half-year of 1998 have already been planned by the Southern Maryland Communications, Computers and EMC Chapter. The regularity of a monthly meeting scheduled for the last Monday of each month will be continued. We are continuing to invite more IEEE Distinguished Lecturers to our dinner meetings in hopes we can increase our dinner meeting attendance. For more information, contact Mr. Fred Heather (heatherf%am3@mr.nawcad.navy.mil) or Mr. Wayne Devereux, phone (301) 863-4290 (wdevereux.paxr@veda.com).

Sweden

In November, the Sweden chapter re-elected the following committee: Dag Bjorklof, of SEMKO AB, is the chair; Per-Olof Eriksson, of Enator Communications AB, is the vice-chair; and Mats Backstrom, of FOA AB, is the secretary. During 1997, the Swedish chapter had three meetings. The topic of the April meeting at SEMKO EMC Center in Stockholm was “EMC and Medical Equipment.” One presentation, given by Mr. Jan Welinder of the Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, was titled “Investigation of the Electromagnetic Environment in Hospitals.” Another presentation, given by Mrs. Eva Clausson of Medtronic-Vingmed, was titled “Pacemakers and EMC”.

A meeting was held in September at the University of Lund. The topic of this meeting was “Potential Biological Effects Due to Electromagnetic Fields.” There were seven presentations representing Swedish authorities, scientists, and the telecommunication industry.

One of the representatives of the scientific community was Dr. Kjell Hansson-Mild of the National Institute for Working Life. His presentation was titled “Electrical Hypersensitivity - the Present Situation.” From the industrial side, Mr. Christer Tomevik of Ericsson Radio Systems AB gave a presentation titled “Cellular Phones - Electromagnetic Exposure and Interference.”

The third meeting of the year was held in November at ABB EMC Center in Vasteras. The topic of this meeting was “Power Electronics”. An overview of the topic was given by Dr. Lars-Erik Juhlin of ABB Power Systems AB. Other subjects treated were EMC education and test standards.

Toronto

The December meeting of the Toronto chapter featured Prof. Todd Hubing of the University of Missouri-Rolla. The subject of Prof. Hubing’s talk was “EMI Troubleshooting Techniques.”

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