The 60^th IEEE EMC SI/PI Symposium took place August 7-11 at National Harbor in Washington DC with the “plan to inspire, envision, and innovate.” The keynote set the stage for this plan as Julius Knapp, FCC Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, discussed the status of the FCC and industry EMC standards, the equipment authorization program and enforcement as the wireless space becomes more and more crowded with emerging technologies such as IoT, connected/autonomous vehicles, UAVs, increased satellite broadband and 5G taking off.

Here is a link to our picture gallery from the exhibition (videos will be coming shortly). We visited many of the leading companies on the exhibition floor and here is a summary of the products being highlighted there.

Altair was featuring their new propagation modeling capabilities. WinProp’s accurate and fast empirical and deterministic propagation models are available for a wide range of scenarios: Rural, urban, indoor, tunnel, vehicular. WinProp supports arbitrary transmitters including cellular and broadcasting sites, satellites, repeaters, and leaky feeder cables. By offering a selection of different solvers, FEKO users can choose the method that is most suitable to the problem that they are trying to solve, or use more than one solver for cross validation purposes. All FEKO solvers are sold in a single bundle and are also part of the Altair HyperWorks licensing system.

ANSYS SIwave is a dedicated tool for electrical analysis of full PCB and complex electronic packages. SIwave solves interrelated PI, SI, and EMI challenges to deliver predictive analysis for designs. It provides solutions in both the Time & Frequency domains. The 3D Power Integrity Electronic Package Design gives access to a streamlined 3D design flow that enables complete package system analysis using sign-off verification for package power integrity. The integrated tools provide seamless integration with EDA layout tools to create customized signal integrity, power integrity and EMI design flows. For RF engineers, HFSS sets the standard for accuracy, advanced solver and high-performance computing technology, making it a very good tool for engineers designing high-frequency and high-speed electronics found in communication systems, radar systems, satellites, smart phones and tablet devices.

AR was featuring their broad frequency range amplifiers (each covering 10 kHz – 1000 MHz) and a wide spectrum of power from 1-25 watts, for their new “U” Series amplifiers that are ideal for multiple applications across diverse industries. With these innovative amplifiers, their engineers succeeded at creating smaller, more affordable amps without compromising on performance or durability. “U” Series amplifiers are ideal for laboratory testing, EMC testing, antenna & component testing, watt meter calibration, medical/physics research, and more. Custom versions are also available.

ARC Technologies is the leading supplier of microwave and RF absorbing materials for commercial and defense applications. While providing a complete range of standard absorber products, as well as plating and conductive materials, ARC Technologies also offers dielectric materials, composites, radomes, and radar absorbing materials.  Their core business is providing engineering solutions for your EMI shielding and RF noise problems and they have the unique ability to customize solutions that provide customers with superior products. Their Engineer’s Survival Kit products samples of some standard provide for evaluation purposes and is a great way to try their products.

To help you tackle increasingly challenging issues related to simultaneous switching noise, signal coupling, and target voltage levels, Cadence® Sigrity™ PowerSI® technology provides fast, accurate, and detailed electrical analysis of full IC packages or PCBs. It can be used pre-layout to develop power- and signal-integrity guidelines, as well as post-layout to verify performance and improve a design without needing a prototype. Using Sigrity PowerSI technology, engineers can readily perform a broad range of studies to identify trace and via coupling issues, power/ground fluctuations caused by simultaneously switching outputs, and design regions that are under or over voltage targets. On the RF side, Release IC6.1.7 of Virtuoso ADE brings new technologies that RF and microwave engineers can use to address the challenge of designing and validating 5G and IoT designs. The three new tools—ADE Explorer for design, ADE Assembler for validation and ADE Verifier for oversight—enable product development to be better managed and accelerated.

CST was featuring their 2017 version of CST STUDIO SUITE®. Their flagship software offers a range of general purpose and specialized solvers for electromagnetic and Multiphysics problems in our user-friendly interface. CST STUDIO SUITE is used by engineers, designers, and researchers in a wide range of industries. In the most recent edition, many exciting new features help simulate phenomena that appear when distinct components are combined into systems. EMC/EMI and E3 problems can arise from seemingly insignificant details in a complex structure – for instance, a cable, a vent or a seam. The Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) Solver is very suitable for these situations, and supports compact models that can efficiently model complex structures.

Empower RF provides unique design architectures from RF systems yielding impressive size and weight reduction for 500 W, 1 kW, and multi-kW power amplifier platforms. Their designs have been fielded using both LDMOS and GaN devices for user applications that include: EMC / Radiated Immunity, Communications, Electronic Warfare, Radar and RF Component Testing. With no software to install, engineers can monitor and control the system from a PC directly with a peer-to-peer connection or on your local network. Wifi control and monitoring by PC/Tablet/Smartphone is available when the wireless router is connected to the amplifier so no local network required.

EMSCAN provides a “chamber on your desktop” with their unique near field measurement systems. The EMxpert EHX+ consists of a patented scanner, a built-in adapter, a built-in spectrum analyzer and a customer-supplied PC running EMxpert software (EMxpert setup diagram). The EMxpert EHX+ measures the magnetic field (H-Field) in two orthogonal directions using H-field probes. The patented scanner is a passive device that couples the very-near-field emissions from the device under test. The measurements of these coupled fields are done with the spectrum analyzer and the adaptor synchronizes the spectrum analyzer and the patented scanner. The scanner consists of 1,218 H-field (magnetic) probes that operate between 150 kHz and 8 GHz. Probes are wide band but not very sensitive across this band thus they are very good at rejecting background noise.

Keysight was featuring their PNA-B model that replaces the –A. It now goes down to 900 Hz and up to 67 GHz, has a larger 12.1 in screen and advanced touch screen commands plus the latest software tools. The new interface features simplified hard-key and pull-down-menu groupings, tabbed softkeys for better organization of items, touch and hold screen for right mouse click choices, multi-touch scale zooms, tools (shortcut icons), sheets (setup tabs) and more complete status bar.

MVG was discussing their StarLab 50 GHz that is made to meet the high frequency testing challenge. Because it is compact and portable, it frees up space in laboratories and production environments, and saves costs. This new version is a true revolution inside and out, with a keen sense of detail in every component.  Delivering fast and accurate test results, StarLab 50 GHz provides a future-proof turnkey solution for 5G system development and validation.

Ophir was featuring their OTG117 Induced Lightning System is a two part system designed to cover the latest edition of Mil-Std-461G, CS117 consisting of OTG117.1 Multiple Stroke Generator covering Waveform 1-2 and 4-5 and OTG117.2 Multiple Stroke/Burse Generator covering Waveform 3 and 4. Cables and Probes/cores included with system. The OTG117.1 generator is capable of producing Current Waveform 1, Voltage Waveform 2 or Voltage Waveform 4, and Current Waveform 5A all in the Multiple Stroke format. Single event triggering is also available for engineering testing and level setting. It can produce these Waveforms at both the Internal and External Equipment Levels . The OTG117.2 generator is capable of producing Waveform 3 (1 MHz & 10 MHz) Multiple Stroke and Multiple Burst, as well as Waveform 6 Multiple Burst. Single event triggering is also available for engineering testing and level setting.

R&S was featuring their TEMPEST receiver - The R&S®FSWT is the right T&M instrument for applications that require checking the information content of even the smallest signals. With two equivalent, switchable RF inputs, up to 500 MHz measurement and analysis bandwidth and two independently settable analog outputs for video voltage and demodulators, it fits into the typical test setup and easily replaces older instruments. The R&S®FSWT can optionally be equipped with pre-selection and preamplifier in the base unit (5 HU). Twenty-one switchable filters with very low insertion loss suppress even strong out-of-band signals. With preamplifier, the noise figure at 100 MHz is only 1.5 dB. The test receiver measures and demodulates even weak signals reliably. They were also showing their new amplifiers such as the BBA150 broadband amplifier family generates power in the frequency range from 9 kHz to 6 GHz with power levels from 15-3000 W and the BBL200 broadband amplifiers that generate 3 kW, 5 kW and 10 kW of power in a frequency range from 9 kHz to 225 MHz. The BBL200 units are liquid-cooled, solid-state, highly rugged, quiet and efficient. Another featured item was their EUT video monitoring system and inspection software. You can monitor testing and set points of interest to be automatically monitored to detect slight changes during testing.

Tektronix was featuring their IsoVu™ technology that uses optical communications and power-over-fiber for complete galvanic isolation. When combined with an oscilloscope equipped with the TekVPI interface, it is the first, and only, measurement system capable of accurately resolving high bandwidth, differential signals, in the presence of large common mode voltage with: complete galvanic isolation, up to 1 GHz bandwidth, 1 Million to 1 (120 dB) common mode rejection at 100 MHz, 10,000 to 1 (80 dB) of common mode rejection at full bandwidth, up to 50 V differential dynamic range and 60kV common mode voltage range.

Teledyne LeCroy was discussing how high sample rates and bandwidth are important to accurately characterize pulse shapes created with an ESD generator. Their software package offers specialized parameters with adjustable levels that allow engineers to customize the necessary rise time, fall time, and width measurements to ensure that the generator meets industry standards. Built-in statistics and histicons provide the ability to quickly view a large number of measurements at a single glance. For Electrical Fast Transient (EFT), the fast rise times of EFT pulses along with the repetition rates of EFT bursts, require an oscilloscope with both high sample rate and long memory to accurately capture the waveforms. Long memory along with sequence acquisition mode enables the capture of many EFT bursts in a short period of time. Specialized rise, fall, and width pulse parameters, added with the software package and combined with statistics and histicons, allow for fast pulse measurements over all bursts. Built-in zoom capabilities allow you to quickly locate and view any pulses that may fall out of spec.

VDI is the opposite of most other companies as they have been offering products operating in the terahertz range for many years so are often asked to come down in frequency so are offering products in the higher microwave/lower mmWave range now. VDI now offers compact converters for frequency up and down-conversion. These converters are easy to use and well suited for high performance up and down conversion of wideband modulated signals. These modules are available from WR-28 (22.5-40 GHz) up to WR-10 (75-110 GHz), with additional bands in development. VDI has collaborated with Keysight to provide a turn-key solution for very wide bandwidth communication applications. Using VDI's compact converter product line, Keysight was able to generate and analyze up to 5 GHz of occupied bandwidth.