Nowadays any electric/electronic devices must obey governmental requirements to be marketed in Europe as well as in other countries. These requirements tend to avoid the interference phenomena due to the electromagnetic coupling between various devices. The aim of the course is to present the main ways this coupling can set in –with particular reference to devices including digital circuitry- and to understand how to reduce it by proper design choices.

Lectures and exercise sessions will allow students to:

- understand how electomagnetic interference fenomena can take place;

- identify, by simple equivalent circuits,  the main parameters affecting emissions, susceptibility and crosstalk;

- choose the design solutions that minimize emissions, susceptibiity and crosstalk. 

Introduction: Interference, electromagnetic coupling, emissions and susceptibility (immunity), governmental requirements, compliant devices.

Nonideal behaviour of components: Resistance and internal inductance of wires/PCB lands, external inductance and capacitance of parallel wires/PCB lands, lumped equivalent circuits; effect of components leads; ferrite beads and common-mode chokes.

Spectra of digital waveforms: Trapezoidal waveforms as approximation of clock signals, spectral bounds, effect of rise/fall time and other parameters on the spectral content.

Radiated emissions and susceptibility: Simple models for parallel wires emissions, differential versus common-mode currents, emission spectra for clock circuits; simple models for parallel wires susceptibility.

Conducted emissions and susceptibility: The power-distribution system (overview). The Line Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN), differential and common-mode emissions; power supply filters.

Crosstalk: Multiconductor transmission-line equations, inductance and capacitance matrices, lumped equivalent circuit for three-conductor circuits, approximate models for inductive, capacitive and common-impedance couplings in the frequency domain; time-domain models.

Measurements and instruments: semi-anechoic chambers, tuneable receivers, quasi-peak detectors, broadband antennas, antenna factor, current probes.

Students are assumed to have attended basic courses on electromagnetics (including in particular plane waves, skin effect and hertzian-dipole radiation) and circuit theory.

The final exams are usually taken in written form, when justified by the number of enrolled people, including both theoretical questions and numerical exercises. Oral form is always accepted.

Traduzione italiana della 1.a edizione: Clayton R. Paul, Compatibilita' elettromagnetica, Hoepli, 1995, ISBN 978-8820322106