A-Services – emi-support.com

STC supports several companies by supporting, training, and working with clients to resolve their EMC problems. This includes developing and constructing custom test equipment that provides novel methods to fix difficult EMC issues.

Training and Education:
Dr. Schutten has taught well over 3000 engineers with technical training. He has taught more than a dozen 1/2 day IEEE seminars, multiple universities, government laboratories, and Fortune 500 companies. The seminars include fundamental EMC understanding, the equivalent coupling methods, layout methods, and testing techniques. There are seminars that specialize in EMC for power electronic converters, and provide methods to characterize and improve EMC performance, layout and decoupling for low-noise operation, and discusses the EMI effects of using wide bandgap semiconductors such as silicon carbide Mosfets.

Here are links to descriptions of a couple of STC seminars:

EMI: Theory, Coupling Mechanisms, Equivalent Circuits, and Solutions

EMI Causes, Measurement, and Reduction Techniques for Switch-Mode Power Converters

Troubleshooting Customer EMI problems:
STC has successfully resolved hundreds of customer EMI issues. Common client problems include susceptibility issues, where an electronic system becomes corrupted or acts in an unexpected way. We have developed and patented novel EMI tools that can locate, decouple, and characterize EMI weak points in a system. Issues often are resolved by simple circuit modification, such as improved layout or selection of robust components to harden the system. This can then be used to make the system more electromagnetically robust, often at little or no additional system cost.

Precompliance Testing:
STC has a complete set of EMI test equipment for conducted and radiated emission testing, as well as susceptibility testing. Equipment includes real-time spectrum analyzers, LISNs, antennas, DM/CM noise separators, amplifiers, power supplies, ESD guns, near field probe sets, conductive ground plane, and much more.
STC has a laboratory that has been used for several client projects. Customer products can be tested and characterized, to ensure that they meet the appropriate EMC standards, before sending the product to an EMC lab for certification. Testing can be performed throughout the product development cycle, to continually improve EMI emissions and robustness for the lowest product cost.

Design & Board Layout Reviews:
STC has a long history of supporting design reviews, board layout reviews and system concept reviews. Addressing EMI issues early in the design and development cycle ensures a robust design with minimal or no added costs. This effort can ensure that your product not only meets the necessary EMI regulatory standards, but also will not experience unexpected customer failures. STC has worked on many power converter projects, including multi-megawatt silicon-carbide aerospace inverters, and helped enable novel construction methods to ensure lightweight, reliable, and low-cost products.
This effort often includes simple emission and susceptibility tests during the development stages and leads to a product that is both low cost and reliable.

Custom Test Hardware:
Quite often customers require EMI/EMC hardware for specialized applications. STC has successfully designed and constructed multiple custom electronic systems to support this testing. The photo on the right is a differential/common mode noise separator used for optimizing conducted emissions testing. It is controlled remotely, so high-voltage high-power systems can be fully characterized without the need for powering the unit down to change EMI test measurements.
Other test hardware includes noise injection probes and control boxes to locate and isolate EMI weak points on a board or system. Another customer desired a optical gate drive control board for testing and hardening SiC gate drive cards. STC also developed a custom, low cost, compact, programmable chattering relay test unit. Additionally, STC has designed and constructed custom amplifier boards, comb generators, GaN deskew circuit boards, double pulse power semiconductor boards, and multiple other specialized hardware.