REPORT ON EMC ZURICH '01

As in the preceding years, the Symposium which is sponsored by the Swiss Electrotechnical Association (SEV), has been organized by the Communication Technology Laboratory of the ETH Zurich under the auspices of Mr. F. Rosenberg, Swisscom. Prof. Dr. P. Leuthold and Dr. G. Meyer acted again as symposium president and symposium chairman, respectively. The technical program committee was chaired by Dr. F. Tesche (Fairview, USA).

Several international and national professional organizations were cooperating, e.g. IEEE, ITU and URSI. As in the past, URSI Commissions A and E sponsored the participation of young scientists at the symposium.

A total of 131 carefully selected technical papers were presented in 19 sessions devoted to: EMC protection (A), adverse effects of high power EM (B), medical and biological issues (C), EMC in networks (D), sensors and probes (E), EMC in power systems (F), transients (G), transmission lines (H), modelling large chips and packages (I), lightning (J), measurement techniques (K), computer codes and validation (L), high frequency methods and analysis (M), test chambers and cells (N), PCBs in the GHz range (O), EMC innovation (P), EMC in communication systems (Q), reverberation chambers (R) and chip-level EMC (S). The sessions covered virtually all EMC "hot" topics, and reviewed the current status and future trends of EMC technology. The full text of the presentations has been made available in the symposium proceedings and on a CD-ROM.

As in previous symposia the program was not designed exclusively for EMC "experts". An introduction to EMC technology for newcomers was offered in two tutorial lectures and three workshops. In the IEEE EMC Society workshop, the latest standardization for measurements above 1 GHz, including the uncertainties associated with these measurements, was presented. A new platform for the symposium exhibitors, the so-called Industrial Forums, was introduced with the objective of providing the attendees some practical and industrial aspects of EMC.

Once again, a number of national and international organizations used the venue of the symposium to have open and closed meetings in coordination with EMC Zurich. The IEEE EMC Society Board of Directors held their first meeting of the year as an open meeting. Open meetings dealing with the progress in the different working groups and identifying outstanding topics and new lines of future research offered an insight into the work of URSI Commission E. The research cooperation on Sustainable Mobile Communication also was discussed at the symposium. Their mission is to support innovative research on EMF risks attributed to cellular phone technology. A further open meeting was organized by the IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) on EMC problems experienced and caused by radio amateurs. The contributions of these joint events have been made available in a supplement to the symposium proceedings.

Important topics of the EMC Zurich 01.

EMC innovation: Session P was devoted to views and methodologies, which are rather new, at least in the field of EMC. Two papers of this session, together with a full tutorial lecture, were devoted to the promising application of wavelets to EMC, offering reduced computation time and memory size. The continuing interest and success of neural networks and fuzzy logic applied to EMC was demonstrated by several papers. The benefits of these approaches include an efficient analysis and prediction tool for EMC problems and guidance for circuit design. While usual measures on circuit level are focusing on the circuit layout, two papers dealt with improved EMC by appropriate control of the clock and timing of logic circuits.

Emerging technologies and new EMC problems: Emerging communication and information technologies, having ever increasing channel bandwidths with clock frequencies beyond 1 GHz, pose new compatibility problems. The critical technical issues were discussed in the session O and Q. The key EMC topics were as follows: new transmission technologies admitting Megabit data rates on the installed (i.e. cheap) copper power lines and telephone lines ("Power Line Telecommunication/PLT" and "Digital Subscriber Line/DSL"); new mobile phone systems; new wireless access to computer networks (WLAN); and new trends in the design of printed circuit boards (PCB) for the GHz frequency range. The widespread use of mobile phone technology requires further research into biological effects of electromagnetic fields. New views have been presented in session C and the open meeting on sustainable mobile communications.

Testing gives the final answer to EMC The final determination of the question of electromagnetic compatibility usually is given by adequate testing. Sophisticated sensors and probes (session E) are prerequisites for efficient testing. Radiation tests, whether they refer to emission or to immunity are expensive, due to test infrastructure and test time. Despite these costs, such tests have also inherently large uncertainties in the test results. Most current research in this field focuses on improved test site validation (to reduce the testing uncertainty) and on more efficient, or less expensive, alternative test methods. The latest results for the validation and comparison of open area test sites were discussed in sessions K and N. Two alternative methods that have made significant progress are TEM-lines (treated in session N) and reverberation chambers (R). An IEEE EMC Society workshop addressed testing and uncertainty, including the frequency range above 1 GHz.

Low and high energy pulses - Protection The most probable electromagnetic phenomenon in real life is the discharge of low energy static electricity, called "ESD". Its effects and improved calibration methods of ESD simulators were the main issues in session G. The parameters of lightning, its numerical modelling and protection measures are key topics in lighting related research and development. These were covered in session J, and also partly by F. Additionally a tutorial lecture introduced lightning phenomena and its effects. There is also an increasing concern about an unpleasant disturbance source: the intentionally-generated ultra wide-band electromagnetic pulse. This environment is also described as "electromagnetic terrorism", and it was discussed in session B. The most common measure to improve EMC is shielding, a topic covered at the theoretical and application level in session A.

It is difficult to point out general trends in the field of EMC, but with the growing interest in theoretical models and numerical methods, the role of computers is becoming increasingly important. Also, with the trends to higher integration and to nanotechnology, EMC models and tools for MMICs, microsensors and nanomachines are gaining attention, and new effects will have to be taken into account in the future.

As usual, the Technical Exhibition has significantly contributed to the success of EMC Zurich'01 by demonstrating the fast conversion of theoretical knowledge into state-of-the-art hard- and software.

The traditional inquiry returned some very interesting suggestions for the next EMC Zurich Symposium, which is planned for February 18 through 20, 2003.
The call for papers of the 15th International Zurich Symposium and Technical Exhibition on EMC is scheduled for November 2001.

For further information about the EMC Zurich '03 Symposium, please contact the Symposium Chairman, Dr. Gabriel Meyer at gmeyer@nari.ee.ethz.ch or the Technical Program Chairman, Dr. Fred Tesche at Fred@Tesche.com.