High Frequency Measurement Website
Douglas C. Smith
Douglas C. Smith
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Welcome to my High Frequency Measurements Web
page. Below you will find links to interesting technical goodies for download,
as well as other interesting websites, information on my seminars, and
much more. I will be adding to this site weekly, so check back occasionally.
Feel free to print out pages on this site and to give them to others, but
I ask you to include the complete page with header. Check out the monthly
Technical Tidbit article linked at the bottom of this page. Each one will
illustrate a design or measurement principle, sometimes what
not
to do.
HF News is back! If you want to subscribe just send me an email at doug@dsmith.org
with "HFNews" as the subject line. There is a link in each issue to
unsubscribe if you want to, but you won't! Each issue contains useful
technical discussion and links to explore and is short and to the
point, like my Technical Tidbits below, so as not waste your time. Each
issue can be read in two or three minutes. Your email address will be
kept private and never be given or sold to anyone.Here is a link to the January 30, 2017 issue: ESD Issues . Subsequent issues will be archived further down this page. You may also enjoy my Twitter feed. Just go to http://twitter.com
and follow me at @dougcsmith_ee . I usually post short items such as
interesting technical links once or twice per day. Design and Troubleshooting Tips and Techniques:
You will find many tips on design and troubleshooting on this site, yet what
you see is just the "tip of the iceberg" compared to what is available in
my on-site private seminars. The seminars cover many effective design and troubleshooting techniques developed by myself and not taught anywhere else! Click here to request more information via email. Quote from a visitor to this site: |
 
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Our office, laboratory, and classrooms are located in the
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Historic Boulder City Dam Hotel and Museum
1305 Arizona Street, Boulder City, Nevada 89005
Phone: (702) 293-3510
---------- Come
for a technical seminar, design review/troubleshooting, or just for a
visit and mix a little history of the Old West with your work!
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I lived in the Bay Area for years and have many clients in the Bay Area and work with them frequently both
on-site and remotely. If you are in the Bay Area and have a technical
issue to solve, give me a call! ---------- The picture on the left was taken on the NASA Ames campus in Mountain View where I have done a lot of work for NASA and others. It is an exciting place. |
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| http://emcesd.com (main site) |
http://www.dsmith.org and http://DesertLabRat.com
(pointers to emcesd.com)
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Courses and Seminars
Great Design, Troubleshooting, and EMC/ESD Seminars! Courses at the University of Oxford by Doug Smith University of Oxford Tutor - Department for Continuing Education
Learn and have fun, all at once at a beautiful, historic venue 22 miles from Las Vegas. Attending one of these classes is like insurance against a design or field disaster for your company and can add to your company's financial results immediately (this quarter)! Lab Techniques, Robust Design, and Troubleshooting
Click here for virtual classes (four half days) limted to 10 attendees Click Here for the next live class (three full days)* limited to 6 attendees or pick your own dates (contact me for details) Why come to this class? Why come to Boulder City? click here Lots of new material have been added to both seminars above that will help you crank out good designs quickly * The most fun an engineer can have! Attendance limited to six lucky people for a great experience.
Lab Techniques, Robust Design, and Troubleshooting
(click here to register and for more information on the live class) (click here to register for the vertual, web based class) This seminar is fun and covers material not covered in any other seminar by others. It is much broader than just EMC/ESD issues, covering my research over many decades. (also known as High Frequency Measurements and Noise in Electronic Circuits) Click here for more information, including cancellation policy. The live seminar is limited to 6 people to insure the best experience and social distancing! Click here to see a walk through of the facilities in Boulder City, NV Three whole or four half days, one instructor covering great techniques to get your design working and finding defects that could become field failures. In addition, unique and powerful methods of troubleshooting EMC and ESD problems in minutes to hours instead of days to weeks or more are presented. Lots of demos on live circuits illustrate most of the main points covered. People have said this was the best course they have ever taken! Click here for more information. Low cost, and some travel expenses included. The seminar includes many design and troubleshooting techniques from my research that have saved my clients millions of dollars and are only available at this seminar. No other event, symposia, seminar, or webinar covers these privately developed techniques. NEW: New data for waveform purity and E-field radiation from most modern ESD simulators that will help you select a simulator that will be more likely to fail or pass your product. ESD testing standards do not adequately characterize the simulators leading to inconsistent test results. This data will help make sense of test results.
The Lab, Design, and Troubleshooting seminar
is my three day seminar on design, lab techniques, and
troubleshooting which includes about 1/2 day on EMC in designs, ESD in
designs, and troubleshooting and measurement techniques in the design
lab. I started this seminar years ago and constantly add and update it.
A number of people have said to me that it is the best course on
any topic they and eveqr taken. Almost 50% of time is devoted to
demonstrations. This year I have added a new section on exposing low
probability failure modes that can present safety or other problems
that can be a field disaster. There is content on my unique EMC/ESD
troubleshooting techniques, but in addition, there is a lot of content
on just getting the design to work in the first place or to
troubleshoot it later on.
This class is held in the Boulder Dam Hotel, a restored National Landmark Building that hosted the dignitaries who came to visit Hoover Dam during its construction. To visit the Boulder Dam Hotel website, click here. About Boulder City, NV
Boulder City, NV is a small, quiet town that once was home to the workers that built Hoover Dam. There is plenty to see within a few blocks of the seminar venue shown in the picture below. It is located about 6 miles from Hoover Dam and about 22 miles from Las Vegas. Boulder City is the opposite of Las Vegas, but the glamor of Las Vegas is not too far away if you want to go there. I often say that being in Boulder City is like living in the 1950s but with very high speed Internet. Follow the links below for more information. s  For more information on Boulder City, NV click here For more information on the Boulder City Dam Hotel and Museum, the site of the seminar click here Click here, to see descriptions and registration information on my one hour webinars than can solve difficult design problems quickly. Touching on topics like signal integrity, EMC, ESD, and general analog and digital design, these webinars are a quick way to get your design working. There are public presentations most weeks as well as private presentations on demand with a new simplified, lower cost price structure. New webinars are added periodically. Wireless Charging and Power Transfer - Problems and Solutions
Friday, June 14th, 2019 at 10 a.m. PDT (US)  Wireless charging has several problems including noise injection into the system structure that can lead to EMC issues. Many such devices get past EMC testing by limiting the way EMC testing is done to benign cases. This webinar will demonstrate the problems and possible solutions in a live lab environment as opposed to just showing slides. Target is for a one hour presentation but the length may vary depending on audience participation and may go longer. The cost is lower than most webinars at $100/person capped at $500 per location, so that even individuals can afford to attend that will not be reimbursed by their employer. If you have several people that can attend, the cost becomes very low per person. Private delivery for a group is $500. Please call/text/or email me before registering to make sure there is a spot for you. Cell: +1-408-858-4528, doug@dsmith.org  Featured Suppliers: (click on logo to visit their site)
HF News newsletter
To get the latest issue delivered to your inbox, send me an email with "Subscribe to HF News" in the subject line.
You can find lots of audio and video podcasts on various topics of
technical interests. Most of them are from a few years ago and were on
my paid website emcesd-p.com but are still current and useful, and now
free. I will be adding podcasts regularly in the future. This has been
made possible by the continuing decline in costs of bandwidth. Click here to go to my podcast page or go directly to my papers, articles, and Technical Tidbits on this site!
Check out one of my non-technical adventures, the Devil Dash, a footrace combined with an obstacle course (barbed wire, mud, rough terrain, etc.). Click here to see the story. The event took place in Bootleg Canyon, here in Boulder City, NV March 23, 2013, on a much colder than normal day. I finished faster than 90% those entered, who on average were less than half my age (67), including finishing faster than 82% of the 20-25 year old group! 2022 update: Currently I am running in the top 1% of all runners of all ages for mileage per month according to Strava (200-250 miles per month)!  |
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Technical Tidbit:
My latest Technical Tidbit appears at the bottom of this page. Click here to go to the bottom of this page for the article (but you will miss more than 250 papers and articles in-between).
Have a tough design problem? Design problems can be very costly. Even if caught in the lab, precious resources can be wasted tracking such problems down. My private seminars cover design and troubleshooting techniques I developed that are not taught by anyone else! These techniques have solved tough problems in a day or two after design teams had struggled with the problems for weeks or months, not to mention avoiding the problems in the first place. Click here to request more information.
Design troubleshooting and verification: Tracking down design problems in the lab can be time consuming. My public seminars and my private on-site seminars include new information to minimize debug time. The difference can be hours to a solution instead of weeks! Click here to hear a 1 minute, ~128K, audio clip discussing the seminar.
Click here for more information, books, seminars, and consulting on high frequency measurement, design, troubleshooting, signal integrity, and EMC.
(click on the image to enlarge the certificate)
(click on the image to enlarge the certificate)
Doug, setting up for an ESD test.
Check out my interview on EEWeb! Click here to see the interview.
Technical Information and Published Papers
- 50 MHz Oscillator (~260K)
- (BOM included)
- DC to 1GHZ Oscilloscope Probe Plans (~270K)
- (With theory of operation and zoom close-ups)
- Computer Simulation of ESD and Lightning Events (~1.2MB) (recent addition!)
- (1986 EOS/ESD Symposium Paper)
- A New Type of Furniture ESD and Its Implications (~750K)
- (1993 EOS/ESD Symposium Paper)
- Balanced Probe Extends High-Frequency Measurements (~3.5MB)
- (1994 IEEE Circuits & Devices Magazine article)
- EMC Performance Comparison of Shielded and Unshielded Data Transmission Systems (~640K)
- (EMC'94 Roma Symposium paper)
- An Investigation into the Performance of the IEC 1000-4-4 Capacitive Clamp (~150K)
- (1996 EOS/ESD Symposium paper)
- A New Method for Measuring the Shielding Effectiveness of Interconnections in Shielding Technologies: Application to Cellular Phone Gaskets for the Housing (~740K)
- (1996 IEEE EMC Symposim paper)
- A Method for Troubleshooting Noise Internal to an IC (~140K)
- (1997 IEEE EMC Symposium paper)
- Current Probes, More Useful Than You Think (~170K)
- (1998 IEEE EMC Symposium paper)
- Damage to Magnetic Recording Heads due to Electromagnetic Interference (~420K)
- (1998 IEEE EMC Symposium paper)
- Signal and Noise Measurement Techniques Using Magnetic Field Probes (~600K)
- (1999 IEEE EMC Symposium paper)
- Unusual Forms of ESD and Their Effects (~1.5MB)
- (1999 EOS/ESD Symposium paper)
- Investigate System-Level ESD Problems
- Cover story for the November issue of Test and Measurement World Magazine
- ESD Immunity in System Designs, System Field Experiences and Effects of PWB Layout (~950K)
- (2000 EOS/ESD Symposium paper)
- The EMI/ESD Environment of Large Server Installations
- (2001 EOS/ESD Symposium paper) (~510K)
- A Method of Accurately Measuring Shielding Efffectiveness of Materials in Electronic Products
- (June 2002 white paper written for Shielding for Electronics, Sunnyvale, CA) (~373K)
- Sources of Impulsive EMI in Large Server Farms
- (2002 EOS/ESD Symposium paper) (~770K)
- Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Inside a Hard Disk Drive Due to External ESD
- (2002 EOS/ESD Symposium paper) (~630K)
- Interpreting Radiated Emission Specifications (~44K)
- (2003 short white paper)
- Determining the Effects of Package Parasitics on SI and EMC Performance (~750K)
- (2007 IMAPS Symposium paper)
- Noise Injection for Design Analysis and Debugging (~1.4MB)
- (2009 DesignCon paper)
- Shielded vs. Unshielded Magnetic Loops for EMI/ESD Design and Troubleshooting
- by Doug Smith and Arturo Mediano as published in InCompliance Magazine, August 2014
- An Unusual Source of Multiple ESD Events in Electronic Equipment
- (2015 Institute of Physics Electrostatics Symposium paper)
- Techniques for Investigating the Effects of ESD on Electronic Equipment
- (2015 Institute of Physics Electrostatics Symposium paper)
- Predicting Field Failure From Small Environmental Stresses
- (2019 DesignCon paper)
Technical Tidbits (archi
Technical Tidbits (archived, current article is at bottom of this page)
- June 1999: The Dual Current Probe Problem
- July 1999: The Shorted Scope Probe Problem
- August 1999: The Paperclip Magnetic Probe
- September 1999: Measuring Voltages Using Current Probes
- October 1999: The Tapered Wall Cavity
- November 1999: Transient Suppression Plane
- December 1999: Can Ferrite Cores Increase Emissions?
- January 2000: Displaying Measurement Error
- February 2000, Measuring Capacitor Self-inductance and ESR
- March 2000, Improved Construction Technique for a 50 Ohm Termination
- April 2000, Paper Clips and the Speed of Light
- May 2000, Measuring Inductor Performance
- June 2000, 180 Degree Combiners
- June 2000 supplement, Ground Lead, Friend or Foe?
- July 2000, A Resistive Current Probe
- August 2000, Measuring Shielding Effectiveness of Materials
- September 2000, Copper Foil Tape, Anyone?
- October 2000, A Specialized Component
- November 2000, Measuring the Effects of High Frequency Noise Currents in Equipment
- December 2000, An Easy to Build Shielded Magnetic Loop Probe
- January 2001, It's Just a Wire, Isn't It?
- February 2001, Switching Power Supplies - Effects on Circuits, Magnetic Fields
- March 2001, Switching Power Supplies - Common Mode Conducted Noise on Outputs
- April 2001, Measurement Error Caused by Probe Input Impedance
- May 2001, Hidden Threats to Electronic Equipment
- June 2001, A Static Field Powered EMI Source
- July 2001, A Simple Shielding Effectiveness Measurement
- August 2001, Differential Measurement of Cable EMI Currents
- September 2001, Improving FET Probe Immunity to Unwanted Noise Pickup
- October 2001, The Elusive Glitch
- November 2001, The Elusive Glitch - Part 2
- December 2001, The Elusive Glitch - Part 3, Measurement of Impulsive Fields
- January 2002, Cable Effects Part 1: Cable Discharge Events
- February 2002, Cable Effects Part 2: Inductive Pickup by Cables in a System
- March 2002, Cable Effects Part 3: Capacitive Pickup by Cables in a System
- April 2002, Printed Wiring Board Coupling to a Nearby Metal Plane
- May 2002, Printed Wiring Board Coupling to a Nearby Metal Plane, Part 2: ESD Immunity
- June 2002, Using Mutual Inductance to Measure Voltage Drop in Circuits
- July 2002, Inexpensive, but Useful Test Equipment
- August 2002, Probe Input Impedance Revisited - Active Probes
- September 2002, Kirchoff and Faraday Voltage Measurements - Don't Confuse Them
- October 2002, Printed Wiring Board Coupling to a Nearby Metal Plane, Part 3: System Measurements
- November 2002, Measuring Noise Voltage Across Seams in Enclosures
- December 2002, Crossing Ground Plane Breaks, A Source of Crosstalk
- January 2003, Crossing Ground Plane Breaks - Part 2, Tracing Current Paths
- February 2003, Crossing Ground Plane Breaks - Part 3, Immunity to Radiated EMI
- March 2003, Minimizing Errors in Oscilloscope Measurements
- April 2003, Measurement and Interpretation of High Frequency Chip Noise
- May 2003, Signal Paths Passing Through Ground and Power Planes, Effects on Immunity
- June 2003, A Simple Horn Antenna for Emissions Troubleshooting
- July 2003, Measuring E-Field Coupled IC Chip Noise
- August 2003, Sin(x)/x, The Forgotten Setting - Part One
- September 2003, Sin(x)/x, The Forgotten Setting - Part Two, An EMI Example
- October 2003, Heisenberg and Signal Measurements (A variation on the Uncertainty Principle)
- November 2003, Heisenberg and Signal Measurements - Part 2, The Frequency Domain
- December 2003, Troubleshooting Noise from Pulse Width Modulation Controlled 3 Phase Motors and Controls
- January 2004, Determining the Effects of Probing on Signals - Tuned Probe Simulators
- February 2004, Measuring Printed Circuit Board Characteristic Impedance Without a TDR (when you need a close answer fast!) by Charles Grasso
- March 2004, Coupling Effects Between Equipment Enclosures (interactions with grounding conductors)
- April 2004, Paper Clips, They're Not Just For Emissions Anymore!
- May 2004, A Simple Spark Gap EMI Source
- June 2004, Misapplication of Test Standards
- July 2004, Induced Voltages via Electric and Magnetic Fields - ESD Immunity
- August 2004, Wi-Fi (Wireless LAN) Antenna Response to EMI from Small Metal ESD
- September 2004, Mobile Phone Response to EMI from Small Metal ESD
- October 2004, Active Probe Design Philosophy
- November 2004, Crosstalk Between Oscilloscope Channels and Other Errors
- December 2004, Locating ESD and Other Impulsive Events
- January 2005, Crossing Ground Plane Breaks - Part 4, Risetime Effects on Signals
- February 2005, Crossing Ground Plane Breaks - Part 5, Common Mode Currents and Emissions
- March 2005, Shielded Cables: Measurement of Shield Characteristics
- April 2005, Inductive and Capacitive Coupling - Induced Current Characteristics
- May 2005, Verifying Current Measurements - Revisited
- June 2005, Analysis of the IEC 61000-4-4 Capacitive Clamp Using Current Measurements
- July 2005, Radiated Interference to High Frequency Signal Measurements from the Signal Source
- August 2005, Off-spec Use of Protection Components
- September 2005, Multiple Turn and Single-turn Ferrite Chokes Compared
- October 2005, Controlling Variables in High Frequency Tests and Measurements - an ESD Example
- November 2005, Coupling Signals and Noise into Circuits Using Magnetic Loops - A Troubleshooting Technique
- December 2005, Applying Copper Foil Tape to a Metal Surface
- January 2006, A Small Change Can Have a Large Effect
- February 2006, Construction of a Coaxial Antenna for Troubleshooting
- March 2006, Predicting Cable Emissions from Common Mode Current
- April 2006, Routing Signals Between PWB Layers - Part One, An ESD Example
- May 2006, Routing signals Between PWB Layers - Part Two, An Emissions Example
- June 2006, Measuring Structural Resonances
- July 2006, A Small Change Can Have a Large Effect - Part Two
- August 2006, A Measurement Technique for Locating EMI "Hot" Areas on Boards or Systems
- September 2006, A Method for Improving the Repeatability of Air Discharges ad 8 kV and Higher
(Filtering Contact Discharges - Part 1, Low Pass filtering)- October 2006, Filtering Contact Discharges - Part 2, High Pass Filtering
- November 2006, Measuring Signals in the Presence of Severe EMI - Part 1, How Not to Do It
(differential measurement by channel subtraction)- December 2006, Measuring Signals in the Presence of Severe EMI - Part 2, A Differential Solution
- January 2007, Measuring Signals in the Presence of Severe EMI - Part 3, Single Ended and Differential Probes
- February 2007, Coupled Bonding Conductors (from Lightning Protection to Noise Reduction)
- March 2007, Isolating Board and Chassis Grounds - A Potential Problem (An ESD Example)
- April 2007, Rubber Band Theory of Circuit Design (explaining the effects of signal return paths with rubber bands)
- May 2007, Placement of Parallel Capacitors on a Printed Wiring Board (for troubleshooting or a quick fix)
- June 2007, Common Circuit Design Flaws That Cause Operational Problems (problems fixed long ago are still showing up in designs)
- July 2007, Mobile Phone Induced Circuit Failure
- August 2007, Mobile Phone Induced EMI
- September 2007, Electronic Fluorescent Light Induced EMI
- October 2007, Using Noise Injection for Troubleshooting Circuits
- November 2007, Measuring Structural Resonances in the Time Domain - Part 1
- December 2007, Using Current Probes to Inject Pulses for Troubleshooting
(Current Probes, More Useful Than You Think - Part 2)- January 2008, Using Current Probes to Measure Cable Resonance
(Current Probes, More Useful Than You Think - Part 3)- February 2008, Using Resonant Frequency Measurements to Extract Circuit Parameters
(Calculating the Capacitance of a BNC Barrel Adapter)- March 2008, Measuring and Interpreting the Relative Phase of Common Mode Currents
(an EMC emissions troubleshooting technique)- April 2008, Measuring Structural Resonances - Part 2, Printed Wiring Board Traces
(A Simple Technique for Determining the Resonant Frequencies of a PWB Trace)- May 2008, The Square Shielded Loop - Part 1
(Construction details)- June 2008, The Square Shielded Loop - Part 2, Parasitic Coupling
(Electric Field Shielding of Magnetic Loops is Not Always Effective!)- July 2008, The Square Shielded Loop - Part 3, Parasitic Coupling Between Unshielded Wire Loops
- August 2008, The Square Shielded Loop - Part 4, Coupling to a PCB
(From Shielded and Unshielded Magnetic Loops)- September 2008, The Square Shielded Loop - Part 5, Measurements in the Time Domain
(From Shielded and Unshielded Magnetic Loops)- October 2008, Minimizing ESD Events Involving Electronic Equipment
(Using Static Dissipative Materials in Equipment Design- November 2008, Switching Power Supply Noise - Magnetic Fields Revisited
- December 2008, Inexpensive Protective Caps for SMA and BNC Connectors
(also known as vacuum port caps for automobile engines)- January 2009, Injection of ESD Current into Cables Using Capacitance
(A Useful ESD Troubleshooting Tool)- February 2009, PCB Protection can be Compromised by Ground Structure
(Shunting noise currents to a separate ground can cause problems)- March 2009, Using Current Probes to Inject Pulses for Troubleshooting - Part 2
(Current Probes, More Useful Than You Think - Part 3)- April 2009, Construction of a Series 50 Ohm Termination
- May 2009, Using a Series 50 Ohm Termination With a High Voltage Transient Generator
(A Useful Accessory for the TG-EFT Generator)- June 2009. Effect of High Voltage Pulses on Resistors - ESD and EFT
- July 2009, Can a Near Field Measurement Predict Far Field Emissions?
(For one important case, the answer is yes!)- August 2009, The Square Shielded Loop - Part 6, Measurements in the Time Domain Using a Comb Generator
(An unusual use for a comb generator)- September 2009, Using a Two AA Cell USB Charger to Power a Comb Generator
(A Handy Power Source for Any USB Powered Device)- October 2009, Using a Comb Generator to Demonstrate Impairment of the Shielding Effectiveness of a Coaxial Cable
(A Useful Demonstration Technique When a Tracking Generator is not Available)- November 2009, Using a Comb Generator With a Pair of Current Probes to Measure Cable Resonance
(A Useful Technique When a Tracking Generator is not Available)- December 2009, Analysis of the IEEE Std 802.3™-2002 Cable Clamp
(It May Not Be a Good Idea To Use It For 10 Gigabit Ethernet Testing!)- January 2010, Using Current Probes to Inject Pulses for Troubleshooting (Board Resonances) - Part 3
(Current Probes, More Useful Than You Think - Part 4)- February 2010, Damping Board Resonances Using Discrete Resistors
- March 2010, Damping Board Resonances Using Discrete Resistors - Part 2
(Frequency Domain Measurements)- April 2010, Identifying Switching Power Supply Noise in Systems
(Frequency Domain Measurements)- May 2010, A Travel Tip for Engineers and Technicians
- June 2010, Routing Signals Between PCB Layers - Part Three, Interplane Voltage
(Frequency Domain Measurement)- July 2010, Routing Signals Between PCB Layers - Part Four, Interplane Voltage
(Time Domain Measurement)- August 2010, Construction of a Coaxial Antenna for Troubleshooting - Part 2, Practical Implementation
- September 2010, In ESD Testing, Necessity is the Mother of Invention
(Powering an ESD Simulator From AA Batteries)- October 2010, Measurement and Evaluation of SATA Cables
- Novermber 2010, Comparison of Current Waveforms from 150 Ohm and 330 Ohm Networks in an IEC 61000-4-2 Simulator
- December 2010, Comparing "IEC 61000-4-2 Compliant" ESD Simulators
- January 2011, Using Averaging to Cleanup Scope Waveforms
- February 2011, Using High Frequency Current Measurements to Find Secondary ESD in Equipment
- March 2011, Using High Frequency Measurement of ESD Current to Find Problems with an ESD Simulator
- April 2011, Variability of Air Discharge ESD Current Waveforms
(Using high frequency measurements to explain one of many reasons why ESD testing seems to be unrepeatable)- May 2011, Constructing a Shield for an IC Package to Troubleshoot Circuit Problems
(Especially for ESD and EMC Problems)- June 2011, Useful Toolkit for Troubleshooting and Characterizing Circuits
- July 2011, Measuring ESD Stress on a PCB
(When Conventional Measurements Don't Work)- August 2011, Power Over Ethernet Injectors Can Affect Ethernet Radiated Emissions
(High Frequency Measurement of 1000Base-T Ethernet Common Mode Currents)- September 2011, PCB-Chassis Ground Connections - Avoiding Pitfalls Due to Unintended System Resonances
- October 2011, Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Effects on Measurement Equipment
(ESD Effects on Oscilloscopes)- November 2011, Construction of a Tool for Removing Static Charges During ESD Testing
(A New Use for a Ballpoint Pen)- December 2011, Measuring the Resonant Frequencies of Heat Sink Tines
(Your heat sink can be the source of high frequency EMC emissions!)- January 2012, Measuring Common Mode Currents to Troubleshoot EMC Problems
- February 2012, The Melted BNC Adapter
- March 2012, Air Discharge ESD Current Waveforms Revisited
(High frequency ESD current measurements on system cables)- April 2012, Single Point Grounding - Not Achievable at High Frequencies
(greater than a few MHz)- May-June 2012, Destroying Electronic Components from Across the Room With ESD
(Today's sensitive components are really sensitive!)- July 2012, Measuring Breakdown Voltage With an ESD Simulator
(Special simulator characteristics are needed)- August 2012, Novel Equivalent Circuit for Zin of an Arbitrarily Terminated Transmission Line
(Written by Timothy J. Maloney)- September 2012, Measuring Breakdown Voltage and Charging Objects With an ESD Simulator - Part 2
(A method that works with most ESD simulators)- October/November 2012, A Collection of Published Papers and Technical Tidbits on ESD Design and Troubleshooting
- December 2012, A Collection of Published Papers and Technical Tidbits on EMC Design and Troubleshooting
- February 2013, LVDS, Be Careful of EMI Induced Signal Corruption
- April 2013, Human Metal vs. Human Body ESD
(Metal in a Human Hand significantly increases ESD intensity)- June 2013, A Collection of Measurements of ESD Types
(With a short paper by Geoff Weil)- July 2013, Human Metal ESD Characteristics, Size of Metal Object
(Intensity of ESD from a metal object in a human hand is not significantly affected by size of the metal object)- September 2013, Parasitic Resonance in an ~10 MHz RFID Antenna - Measurement and Characterization
- November 2013, Analog Designer's Notebook Part 1 - Improving Op Amp RF Immunity
- January 2014, Analog Designer's Notebook Part 2 - The Importance of Good Power Bypassing
- March-April 2014, Troubleshooting Radiated and Conducted Immunity Problems in the Development Lab
- June 2014, Radiated Emissions Can be Strongly Affected by Setup, A Problem for Testing Standards
(An Example Using a Class D Stereo Audio Amplifier)- August 2014, Radiated Emissions can be Strongly Affected by Driving Signals, A Problem for Emissions Testing
(An Example using a Class D Stereo Audio Amplifier)- September 2014, Human Metal Model ESD Compared to Direct Skin Discharge (Human Body Model) ESD
(Revisited in Video Format)- October 2014, Direct RF Injection for Circuit Debugging
(A Video Presentation)- December 2014, EMC and Other Test Lab Errors
- June 2015, ESD and EFT Internally Regenerated by Power Supplies
- October 2015, Techniques for Investigating the Effects of ESD on Electronic Equipment
- June 2016, Measuring Current of a High Voltage Discharge
- February 2019, A Useful E-Field Near Field Probe for Troubleshooting
- June 2019, Predicting Field Failures from Small Environmental Stresses
2019 DesignCon paper
Talks and Presentations
The links listed here are Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files containing the visuals of recent talks and presentations I have given to various groups. You will need Acrobat Reader V4.0 or better to read the files as well as a password. If you have attended one of these presentations, then you already have the password, if not and you would like to view the file, click here to request the password. Keep in mind that the visuals only cover about 50% or less of my presentations. Live demonstrations and discussion of past experiences make up most of these talks.
- Unusual Forms of ESD and Effects on Electronic Equipment (~2.3MB)
- Printed Wiring Board Immunity to ESD(~2.2MB)
- Overview of High Frequency Measurement Techniques(~600K)
- Current Measurements (~200K)
- Electrical Fast Transient Testing - Principles, Test Tips, and Unusual Uses for EFT Generators (~1.1MB)
- Visuals for 1 GHz probe building sessions held at various IEEE EMC Society Chapters (~320K)
Links to Interesting Sites and Events
- Hardware links
- Rocky Mountain EMC Society Probe Talk (~1.1 MB)
- Service Links
- Henry Ott Consultants
- RMV Technology Group (ESD control and materials experts)
- IEEE EMC Society
- EMC Design Advisory Service
- ESD Control Links
Information About My Seminars
Information About Myself
Miscellaneous
- Pictures of Veldhoven, Netherlands, site of the IEC SC77B meetings, October 1999(~1 MB)
- Pictures of Zug, Switzerland, site of the IEC TC77B meetings, April 2000 (~550K)
- Pictures of Los Gatos, CA, site of High Frequency Measurement/Design Seminar in California (~850K)
- Pictures of the 2000 EOS/ESD Symposium in Anaheim, California, USA (~600K)
- Pictures of Cambridge, MA, USA, site of the IEC TC77B meetings, October 2000 (~400K)
- Pictures of London and Oxford, June 2001 (~462K)
- Pictures of Montreal and the 2001 IEEE EMC Symposium (~525K)
- Pictures of Charlotte, NC and the 2002 EOS/ESD Symposium (~750K)
- Pictures of Chandler, AZ, USA and the IEC TC77b meeting, November 2002 (~600K)
- Pictures of Boulder City, NV, USA, the main site of my public seminars
