Introduction to Electromagnetic Compatibility

Throughout the decades of continuous advances in semiconductor technology, from the discrete devices of the late 1950s to today's billon-transistor system-on-chip, there have always been concerns about the ability of components to operate safely in an increasingly disruptive electromagnetic environment. This paper provides a nonexhaustive review of the research work conducted in the field of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) at the IC level over the past 40 years. It also brings together a collection of information and trends in IC technology, in order to build a tentative roadmap for the EMC of ICs until the year 2020, with a focus on measurement methods and modeling approaches.

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The Electromagnetic Compatibility of Integrated Circuits—Past, Present, and Future

A theory of overall quantization noise for nonsubtractive dither was originally developed in unpublished work by J.N. Wright and by T.J. Stockham and subsequently expanded by L.K. Brinton, S.P. Lipshitz, J. Vanderkooy, and R.A. Wannamaker. It is suggested that since these latter results are not as well known as the original results, misunderstanding persists in the literature. New proofs of the properties of quantizer dither, both subtractive and nonsubtractive, are provided. The new proofs are based on elementary Fourier series and Rice's characteristic function method and do not require the use of generalized functions (impulse trains of Dirac delta functions) and sampling theorem arguments. The goal is to provide a unified derivation and presentation of the two forms of dithered quantizer noise based on elementary Fourier techniques. >

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel4/557/4025/00695075.pdf

Dithered Quantizers

An all-CMOS variable gain amplifier (VGA) that adopts a new approximated exponential equation is presented. The proposed VGA is characterized by a wide range of gain variation, temperature-independence gain characteristic, low-power consumption, small chip size, and controllable dynamic gain range. The two-stage VGA is fabricated in 0.18-mum CMOS technology and shows the maximum gain variation of more than 95 dB and a 90-dB linear range with linearity error of less than plusmn 1 dB. The range of gain variation can be controlled from 68 to 95 dB. The P1dB varies from - 48 to - 17 dBm, and the 3-dB bandwidth is from 32 MHz (at maximum gain of 43 dB) to 1.05 GHz (at minimum gain of - 52 dB). The VGA dissipates less than 3.6 mA from 1.8-V supply while occupying 0.4 mm2 of chip area excluding bondpads

A 95-dB linear low-power variable gain amplifier

The evolving global landscape for electrical distribution and use created a need area for energy storage systems (ESS), making them among the fastest growing electrical power system products. A key element in any energy storage system is the capability to monitor, control, and optimize performance of an individual or multiple battery modules in an energy storage system and the ability to control the disconnection of the module(s) from the system in the event of abnormal conditions. This management scheme is known as “battery management system (BMS)”, which is one of the essential units in electrical equipment. BMS reacts with external events, as well with as an internal event. It is used to improve the battery performance with proper safety measures within a system. Therefore, a safe BMS is the prerequisite for operating an electrical system. This report analyzes the details of BMS for electric transportation and large-scale (stationary) energy storage. The analysis includes different aspects of BMS covering testing, component, functionalities, topology, operation, architecture, and BMS safety aspects. Additionally, current related standards and codes related to BMS are also reviewed. The report investigates BMS safety aspects, battery technology, regulation needs, and offer recommendations. It further studies current gaps in respect to the safety requirements and performance requirements of BMS by focusing mainly on the electric transportation and stationary application. The report further provides a framework for developing a new standard on BMS, especially on BMS safety and operational risk. In conclusion, four main areas of (1) BMS construction, (2) Operation Parameters, (3) BMS Integration, and (4) Installation for improvement of BMS safety and performance are identified, and detailed recommendations were provided for each area. It is recommended that a technical review of the BMS be performed for transportation electrification and large-scale (stationary) applications. A comprehensive evaluation of the components, architectures, and safety risks applicable to BMS operation is also presented.

Review of Battery Management Systems (BMS) Development and Industrial Standards

A digital input designed to be immune to high EMI level without showing false commutations and wrong logic level failures is presented in this paper. The operation of the proposed circuit in the presence of continuous wave EMI has been tested by transistor level, time domain computer simulations and an immunity level in the 10 MHz-1 GHz band, which is more than 20dB higher than that of standard digital inputs has been obtained.

IC digital input highly immune to EMI

In this paper, the susceptibility to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) of an analog signal acquisition front-end (AFE) due to EMI distortion in opamp-based pre-conditioning amplifiers is addressed. More specifically, the possibility to correct EMI-induced errors in the digital domain by post-processing the acquired digital waveforms is discussed and experimentally demonstrated for the first time with reference to an AFE based on EMI-sensitive, off-the-shelf operational amplifiers mounted on a specific EMI test PCB. Extensive experimental characterization in the presence of continuous wave and amplitude modulated EMI reveals the superior immunity to EMI of the proposed AFE and the robustness of the approach.

Digital Suppression of EMI-Induced Errors in a Baseband Acquisition Front-End including Off-the-Shelf, EMI-Sensitive Operational Amplifiers

In the last few decades, the use of power converters has become essential in the smart grid environment. Consequently, this leads to the presence of a high-level of conducted electromagnetic interference between the smart grid elements. This paper studies the effect of two power converter modulation techniques: conventional fixed-frequency modulation and spread-spectrum modulation, on the performance of the Power Line Communication (PLC) signal. The paper presents a practical implementation of the system and discusses the results for different operating scenarios.

The Influence of Commercial PC Switched Mode Power Supply Interference on the PRIME PLC Performance

This article proposes a black-box behavioral modeling framework for analog circuit blocks (CBs) operating under small-signal conditions around nonstationary operating points. Such variations may be induced either by changes in the loading conditions or by event-driven updates of the operating point for system performance optimization, e.g., to reduce power consumption. An extension of existing data-driven parameterized reduced-order modeling techniques is proposed, which considers the time-varying bias components of the port signals as nonstationary parameters. These components are extracted at runtime by a low-pass filter and used to instantaneously update the matrices of the reduced-order state-space model realized as a SPICE netlist. Our main result is a formal proof of quadratic stability of such linear parameter varying (LPV) models, enabled by imposing a specific model structure and representing the transfer function in a basis of positive functions whose elements constitute a partition of unity. The proposed quadratic stability conditions are easily enforced through a finite set of small-size linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), used as constraints during model construction. Numerical results on various CBs, including voltage regulators, confirm that our approach not only ensures the model stability but also provides speedup in runtime up to two orders of magnitude with respect to full transistor-level circuits.

Fast Simulation of Analog Circuit Blocks Under Nonstationary Operating Conditions

Power Line Communication (PLC) technologies are being used in many applications and offer the advantage of utilizing existing power cables for both power and data transmission, thus minimizing cost and complexity. Nevertheless, PLC technology requires further investigation to solve possible co-existence issues. Indeed, recent studies confirmed that alternative modulation schemes such as Random Pulse Width Modulation (RPWM), applied to switching-mode power converters to minimize conducted emissions, detrimentally interfere with the PLC system. This paper presents an experimental test campaign aimed at investigating the effects of RPWM on the G3-PLC system, with the final goal of understanding the conditions under which RPWM schemes can be considered as an effective alternative to conventional Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) in applications involving PLC systems. In details, the effects of different RPWM parameters such as switching frequency, modulation index, and Random Number Update Rate (RNUR) on the G3-PLC is investigated. In addition, different RPWM schemes such as Random Frequency Modulation (RFM) and Random Pulse Position Modulation (RPPM) are compared in terms of performance so as to highlight which RPWM is best suited to assure coexistence with PLC systems. The impact of RPWM on the communication channel is evaluated in terms of Frame Error Rate (FER), Channel Capacity, and Channel Capacity Loss metrics. Experimental results confirmed that randomly modulated converters with switching frequencies near the G3-PLC bandwidth cause more significant disturbance and possible coexistence issues than the switching frequencies out of this range. Results also show that the modulation index and the RNUR of RPWM have a direct effect on the communication channel. Moreover, a trade-off between Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) reduction and coexistence issues is observed: RFM, which is very effective for EMI reduction, is found to be very disruptive for G3-PLC, compared to alternative random modulation techniques such as RPPM.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/11/5550/pdf?version=1653998006

Paolo Stefano Crovetti

Papers

IC digital input highly immune to EMI

Digital Suppression of EMI-Induced Errors in a Baseband Acquisition Front-End including Off-the-Shelf, EMI-Sensitive Operational Amplifiers

The Influence of Commercial PC Switched Mode Power Supply Interference on the PRIME PLC Performance

Fast Simulation of Analog Circuit Blocks Under Nonstationary Operating Conditions

Influence of Random Modulated Power Converter on G3 Power Line Communication