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Design for EM1 Compliance for a Compact 3000W System

Jean-Francois Chouinard and Louis Duguay
Design Managers, Advanced Power Systems Northern Telecom Limited 150 Montreal-Toronto Blvd Lachine, Canada
e-mail :jeanfcOamericasm01.nt.com or louis-duguay8nt.calm

Abstmct Low levels of Electromagnetic Interference Emissions of power equipment are mandatory to avoid interactions between the power system and other telecommunication equipment located in close proximity.

2.0 Radiated emissions irolutions

No malfunctions due to EM1 interferences are tolerable between different types of equipment. The power system should be designed such that it is immune to the emission of other equipment. Also the power system EM1 noise must be below the acceptable limit of other type of telecommunication equipment. The stringent Class B requirements of emission of FCC and CISPR are replacing Class A as the standard to be achieved for a Telecommunication power system.
The paper will describe all the design philosophy for EM1 compliance of a typical compact power system. An example of a 3000W power system that meets CISPR22 3 will be demonstrated. Class B and FCC Class I
1.0 Introduction

Figure 1 shows a 3000W ]power system. It is a card cage type that fits into 500 wide by 150 height and 300 depth. It contains 7 rectifiers of 500W, a controller and a distribubion module. It is a fully front access power system.

Fig 1 . A complete 3000W power system

A complete power system is typically designed in a metallic enclosure. It is convenient both for mechanical and installation purposes. It also provides many dB of attenuation of radiated emissions [ 1] . The measurements taken in this paper are with the same instruments and with the same methodology throughout. The receiver was an HPE1568B.The measurements were performed at 3m between the antenna and the unit under test. A shielded chamber was used to conduct emissions tests in the range of 150kHz to 30MHz while an open field site was used for the radiated emission tests in the range of 30MHz to 1GHz. 2.1 Opening for air cooling The card cage needs oplenings for the air flow to cool down the dissipating elements. These openings must be small to reduce the radiated noise emissions that leak through the openings and possibly perturb other surrounding systems. Figure 2 shows the 7 rectifiers that generate heat and the top and bottom screens with a

The days of the traditional approach to worrying about EM1 performance only at the end of the design cycle are over. The risk of this approach is having dangerous delays in the introduction of the product on the market. To reduce this risk, the IEMI strategy has to be present at the start of the paper design and be an integral part of the design. It must persist in the designers mind through the complete design and verification stages. It was demonstrated how the design cycle time can be reduced by following these rules. The filtering and shielding approach to meet the regulatory standard can be more effective and less costly when applied early in the design cycle. To prevent EM1 problems, it is recommended to suppress the emission at the source during the design of the power circuits. Some guidelines and EM1 solutions will be presented in this paper from a practical point of view. Hole apertures, groundplanes, filtered capacitors, ground connections, cable twisting and shielding will be discussed and tested on a compact power system.

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0-7803-3996-7/97/ $10.0001997 IEEE

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defined size. Figure 3 shows the top view of the shelf with the screen. the radiated emission when a groundplane is added to the backplane board. The groundplane is part of the first and last layer and both layers are connected to the AC ground and to the metallic enclosure through a good and efficient low impedance ground contact. The first layer acts as a shield inside the card cage. It provides shielding attenuation of all the EM1 generated inside the shelf. The last layer acts as a shield outside the card cage. It provides shielding attenuation of all the EM1 noise that circulates on the inner layers of the backplane.
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Fig 2. Front view of the 3000W power system

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Fig 4. Radiated emissions without (a) or with (b) groundplane layers on the backplane

Fig 3. Top view of the 3000W power system

The distance between the layers is also of great importance. As shown on figure 5 , the distance of the layer between the AC ground and the layer of battery return creates a good capacitor. This parasitic capacitor is extremely useful for EM1 filtering. The formula of the capacitor value shows that it is inversely proportional to the distance C = (EA)/d With C = Capacitance (Farad) E = Permittivity of the medium (PCB material) A = Area of the plates d = Distance between the plates
AC GROUND

To be an effective EM1 shield the screen hole pattern must not be larger than W2n [ 1] of the wavelength of the highest frequency radiated. The FCC [ 2 ] and CISPR [ 31 limit the radiated emission at 1GHz. The wavelength is given by the following formula : k c/f. The maximum hole size is then 5 cm. Safety standards have more stringent requirements so the hole size patterns are even smaller and provide thus better EM1 attenuation.
2.2 Backplane PCB design The power system cannot be completely enclosed by a metallic enclosure since many power cables needs to be attached to the circuitry inside the shelf. The backplane is the card where all the vertical cards are inserted. It acts as the back of the card cage and special care must be taken to avoid the contamination of the EM1 through the backplane and to the outside cables or systems.

The backplane design is of extreme importance. Most of the signals travel through the backplane for outside connection or to communicate to another board on the shelf. Figure 4 shows about 8dB of gain at 30MHz on

Fig 5. Layers structure on the backplane board

Significant capacitance can be obtained with an area of 0.075m2 (0.5m*O.l5m). The capacitance value can be

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about lOnF between the two layers. With a combination of the first 2 layers and the last 2 layers, the total capacitance is about 20mF. But more important is the quality of this capacitor that will filter a significant amount of common mode noise. The series resistances are extremely low ancl more important the series inductances are very low as well. Having a discrete capacitor part would not perform as well at high frequency to filter the noise. The distance between the layers which change the capacitance value can improve (5dB at 60MHz) the results of the EM1 radiated emissions as shown in figure 6.
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2.4 Shield between the cards The increasing clock speed or switching frequency and power density pose more challenge to the design of an EM1 class B compliant product. The power converters are certainly a noise source of EMI. To prevent the EM1 pollution from the power converters to the other cards a metallic shield is inserted in between as shown if figure 8 and 9. The result was improved by about lOdB in some frequency bands (3OMHz-35MHz and 65MHz to 85MHz ) (figure 10).

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Fig 6. Radiated emissions with normal distance (a) and reduced distance between groundplane layers
2.3 Filtered capacitors The cables act as a goold antenna connecting the power system (the noise source:inside the shelf) to the outside environment. The noisy signal should be filtered with common mode capacitors for added attenuation. This capacitor is placed between the signal cable and the AC ground. Figure 7 shows about lOdB of gain on some frequency range (55MHz to 75MHz) with the addition of a capacitor with good high frequency characteristics.
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Fig 8. Shield between the distribution board and the rectifiers

Fig 9. Shield between the controller board and the rectifiers

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Fig 7. Radiated emissions without (a) or with (b) filtered capacitors

2.5 Ground connection To provide good shielding effects all the metallic parts of the enclosure should be well connected together to the AC ground. As such, most of the parts are welded together. The front door is a flexible element that needs to be mobile. To provide: a good contact flexible copper fingers were added. (figure 9). The fingers make a good high frequency ground contact between the chassis and the front door. Figure 11 shows an excellent 15dB

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(60MHz-90MHz) of radiated noise emission reduction with the fingers added to the door. It certainly proves that major improvement can be obtained with proper grounding.
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reduced significantly. Figure 13 shows an improvement of 15dB (70MHz-80MHz) of radiated emissions with some cables twisted with their respective return.

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Fig 10. Radiated emissions without (a) or with (b) the shield between the cards
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Fig 12. Radiated emissions without (a) or with (b) the shield on the AC cables
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Fig 11. Radiated emissions without (a) or with (b) the fingers on the front door

Fig 13. Radiated emissions without (a) or with (b) twisting signal cables

2.6 AC cables shielding The shielding of cables also provides some attenuation of the radiated noise. It is also more safe because the outer layer has no live potential. Figure 12 shows an improvement of about lOdB (65MHz to 75MHz) when the input AC cables are shielded. 2.7 Cable twisting It is primordial to understand the noise source and to verify whether the predominant source is the current driven mechanism or the voltage driven mechanism to apply the proper emission reduction solution [ 4 ] . It is well known that a signal cable twisted with its return will be more immune to radiated noise and also will radiate less noise [5]. If a noise is present on a signal cable, the loop created by the twist will radiate in one direction on the first twist but radiate in the opposite direction in the next twist and vice versa. The net effect is almost cancellation and the radiation is

3.0 Conducted emissions solutions

The switching elements (semiconductors) are the major source of EM1 emissions. The very fast change of voltage across them (dv/dt) and the very fast change of current (di/dt) are sources of conducted and radiated electromagnetic interferences. With short rise and fall times the result is high frequency Fourier components. It is well known that there are two divergent goals in switch mode power supply : high efficiency requires high dv/dt and low EM1 emissions requires low dv/dt. Some techniques [6] exist to obtain a good compromise between the two. Soft-switching techniques allow to commute the switching transistors at higher frequency with good efficiency while the transitions (dv/dt and di/dt) are smoother which generate less EM1 [71 .

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Some techniques exist [ 81 to differentiate the differential mode and the common mode for the conducted emissions so that the proper line filtering can be applied. Typically the common-mode is the one mostly present at medium to high frequency. The EM1 noise generated by the power converters transmitted through the .AC power line are trapped by the input AC EM1 filter shown on Figure 1 4 .The filter provides about 45 dB of attenuation through the lower frequency band (150kHz- 500KHz) as shown on figure

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Fig 16. Conducted emiss,ionsof the power system

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Fig 14. EM1 filter used

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Fig 17. Radiated emissions of the power system

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5.0 Conclusion
The paper has shown that with appropriate design techniques it is possible for a compact power system to meet the stringent requirements of class B. It demonstrated that the design solutions for EM1 compliance are required to be present at the first stage of the design. Comparative results were taken to validate the proposed solution.
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Fig 15. Conducted emissions with (a) or without (b) the input AC EM1 filter 4.0 Compliance to global standard

The power system was, tested against the international 6 and 17) full standard (CISPR22) and shows (Figure 1 compliance to class B. Figure 16 is the conducted noise emissions taken in peak mode compared to the limit in quasi-peak mode. Figure 17 shows the radiated emission compared to tlhe class B limit.

Many pratical design solutions were presented : 0 screen aperture size backplane design filtered capacitors 0 metallic shield between cards 0 ground connections 0 cable shielding 0 cable twisting conducted filtering It demonstrated the design challenges of a high density power system to meet ElMI Class B specifications.

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References
[l] MIL-HDBK-241BY

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[SI

Design Guide for Electromagnetic Interference @MI) Reduction in Power Supplies. FCC Part 15, FCC Rules for radio frequency devices, 1997. CISPR22 International Electrotechnical Commission, Limits and methods of measurement of radio disturbance characteristics of information technology equipment, 1993. D.M. Hockanson, J.M. Drewniak, T.H. Hubing, T.P. Van Doren, F. Sha and M.J. Wilhelm, "Investigation of Fundamental EM1 Source Mechanisms Driving Common-Mode Radiation from Printed Circuit Boards with Attached Cables", IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Nov. 1996. L. Tihanyi, Electromagnetic compatibility in Power Electronics. A. Consoli, S. Musumeci, G. Oriti and A. Testa, "An Innovative EM1 Reduction Design Technique in Power Converters", IEEE Transactions on ElectromagneticCompatibility, Nov. 1996. M. van der Berg, J.A. Ferreira and I.W. Hofsajer, "A Unity Power Factor Low EM1 Battery Charger for Telecommunication Applications", INTELEC 1995. T.Guo, D. Y. Chen and F.C. Lee, "Separation of the Common-Mode and Differential-Mode Conducted EM1 Noise", IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics 1996.