EMC Europe 2004

The sixth International Symposium on EMC, or EMC Europe 2004, was held in the Auditorium of the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, from September 6-10. The local organizing committee consisted of Professors J. Blom, P. Wouters and S. Kapora of that University, P. Beeckman and M. Coenen from Philips, Professor F. Leferink from the Twente University of Technology and Thales Netherlands, Professor J. Catrysse from the KHBO in Bruges, Belgium and W. John from the Fraunhofer Institute, Germany. Even on the small scale of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), the Symposium was quite international. The staff of the Eindhoven University Congress Office also took a large part of the organization. Technical Co-Sponsorship from the IEEE EMC Society and URSI further emphasized the international character.
The board of reviewers consisted of 70 members, the majority being from academia. At this Symposium, however, an increased number of reviewers also came from industry and technological institutes. The reviewers had to judge 232 extended abstracts on a short term. The final number of papers that were accepted by the International Steering Committee, and submitted as a full-length paper by the authors, was 179. Three parallel oral sessions accommodated about two thirds of the papers; one third was presented in the poster sessions. The division of the papers between oral/poster sessions followed in many cases the author’s preference, but the proceedings made no distinction between the types of presentation.
The 353 attendees came from all parts of the world; as seen from Eindhoven, from the North of Sweden to South Africa, from the US to Japan. It should be noted that the Chinese attendance was remarkably high.
Sessions with a particularly large number of contributions were Numerical Modeling, Human Exposure, Measurement and Instrumentation, Communication and Wireless Systems, Railway, Cables and Coupling, Anechoic Rooms and Reverberation Chambers, and last and largest: Printed Circuit Boards and Integrated Circuits.
LOC member Pierre Beeckman arranged an extensive program of eleven high quality workshops and four excellent tutorials, all with lectures of 1/2 hour each. Papers were varied and were comprised of topics such as measuring techniques and statistical aspects of EMC testing, as well as EMC prediction tools for ICs and PCBs. Discussions during and after these sessions were as expected; that is, they were intense!
LOC member Frank Leferink was mainly responsible for the Technical Exhibition, and he performed this task with great success since it was fully booked.
The Auditorium is a compact building with 16 spacious rooms perfectly equipped for lectures. Four of these rooms and the main auditorium room were reserved for the Symposium. The others were occupied for normal teaching, since the academic year had started the week before the Symposium; in fact, the presence of the students added to a lively atmosphere. The large central hall housed the Technical Exhibition and the poster session, as well as the afternoon refreshment distribution. Since there were no oral sessions together with the posters, all events in that hall were well attended.
In the opening session, Van Deursen as chairman welcomed the audience and thanked the people who contributed to organizing this Symposium. Rector Magnificus Professor R. van Santen informed the audience about facts, position and goals of the Eindhoven University. Professor M. D’Amore, P. Berkhout from Philips Digital Systems Laboratories, and IEEE EMCS President K. Williams expressed their views on EMC Europe Symposia. Professor F. Silva from UPC announced the attractive venue for the next EMC Europe in 2006: Barcelona, Spain. Keynote speaker A. van der Poel, Chairman of the EU Eureka Project Medea+, gave a very impressive presentation on the importance of the semiconductor industry for the European Union, and the role EMC plays therein.
The social program was varied. It began with a get-together party at the university after the first day. During the lunch on Tuesday, the Symposium chairman welcomed his guests by playing the grand organ of the Auditorium. The cocktail party on that second day was held in the DAF Museum, which has a perfect acoustic for the gypsy orchestra ‘Kabani’ from Amsterdam. The congress dinner was held in the 13th century castle Henkenshage, where one of the eight still practicing wooden shoe makers of The Netherlands showed his art, and the ‘Speellieden van Gelre’ sang and played early medieval music on original instruments.
During the Symposium dinner, Professor M. D’Amore granted the best paper award to presenting author N. V. Kantartzis from the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, for his paper titled: ‘Unconditionally stable numerical modeling and broadband optimization of arbitrarily-shaped anechoic and reverberating EMC chambers’, which he wrote together with T. D. Tsiboukis.
The Symposium committee provided no parallel guest program since in The Netherlands many interesting places can be reached within about an hour of train travel from Eindhoven. The website had already gave some tour information, and friendly students from the Breda school for tourism assisted attendees by providing on-the-spot advice.
Professor D’Amore resigned as chairman of the International Steering Committee. In its meeting on Monday evening, the ISC voted for Professor J. Catrysse as his successor. He has the honorable task to keep one of the largest EMC Symposia in Europe at the high level of quality and of attendance.
From the many comments received after the Symposium, it can be concluded that EMC Europe 2004 has been a worthy successor of the earlier editions. The atmosphere was cordial and relaxed. The compact architecture of the Auditorium made socializing easy, since all activities occurred within a short distance of each other. And finally, the outdoor weather was excellent! At least for the week of the Symposium, because afterwards it was not quite as nice. EMC

The Technical Exhibition and Poster Sessions were in the same area, and were well attended.

Professor Ferran Silva announces the venue for the next EMC Europe in 2006: Barcelona, Spain.

After all, it was Professor Marcello D’Amore who started this successful series of Symposia!

Chairman of the EU Eureka Project Medea+, Arthur van der Poel, informs the audience of the ambitions of the European semiconductor industry, and the important role of EMC.

Professor R. van Santen welcomes the guests to the Eindhoven University of Technology.

The newly elected chairman of the ISC, Professor Johan Catrysse (right), had a lively discussion with R. Marshall after the well-attended workshop on cabling.

Professor X. Cui (second from left) and other members of the Chinese delegation at the Symposium.

Bruno Audone (left) and Michela Audone discuss EMC matters during EMC Europe 2004.

Paola Russo (right) from the “Università Politecnica delle Marche” visited with Emanuele Piuzzi from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” during the poster session.

Many well-known equipment manufacturers displayed their new products at the Technical Exhibition, including Würth Elektronik GmbH & Co.

Amplifier Research enjoyed the exhibition traffic at EMC Europe 2004.

It is a great organ, well suited for the Chairman to welcome the participants with the D-minor Toccata and Fugue by J.S. Bach.

Lunches in the ‘Senaatszaal’ were informal. EMCS President Kimball Williams discusses with Professor J.Blom (second row left to right), and C. van der Dries of the Dutch EMC-ESD Society talks to F. Leferink (foreground left to right).

Professor C. Christopoulos lecturing, also during lunch.