Practical Papers, Articles and Application Notes

Both articles of the current issue are related to measurement techniques for EMC. The first article is entitled “Shielded Cables Transfer Impedance Measurement” by Bernard Démoulin and Lamine Koné, with the TELICE Lab at the University of Lille, France. The determination of transfer impedance of cables and connectors is a common practice for several EMC applications, but it has various hidden subtleties that can often make the result of measurements inaccurate. Despite this fact, I don’t remember having seen fresh and innovative discussions on this subject at conferences or in journal papers, recently. This article brings us the highly competent view of an experienced team on transfer impedance characterization of cables. In particular, Professor Démoulin played a significant role during the1970s at the former Laboratory for Radiopropagation and Electronics (now TELICE), where testing procedures for cable shielding effectiveness were developed and subsequently incorporated by IEC Standards. Recently, Professor Démoulin retired and now he enjoys writing books where he consolidates the long and rich experience on EMC he accumulated in his long carrier. I am delighted to have the privilege of offering you this article (and two more, that will appear in the next issues) shedding light on practical and more subtle fundamental issues of shielded cable transfer impedance measurements. I’m sure it will stimulate discussions and thoughts. The second article is entitled “EMI Failure Analysis Techniques: III. Correlation Analysis” by Weifeng Pan and David Pommerenke from the EMC Lab of the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri. This is the third and last contribution of a series covering different methods for EMI failure analysis of devices. This paper focuses on how to determine the inter-relation between multiple near-field signals and the farfield signal, by means of correlation techniques. However, the reader must be warned that correlation analysis requires advanced measurements and data analysis methods and it is not meant to provide an immediate result for quick EMI troubleshooting. In conclusion, I encourage (as always) all readers to actively contribute to this column, either by submitting manuscripts they deem appropriate, or by nominating other authors having something exciting to share with the Community. I will follow all suggestions, and with the help of independent reviewers, I really hope to be able to provide a great variety of enjoyable and instructive papers. Please communicate with me, preferably by email at canavero@ieee.org.