Making conducted and radiated emissions measurements
Did you know that 50% of projects fail EMI/EMC testing the first time? Intertek Testing Services reports that roughly half of products fail the initial EMC test due to a failure to apply EMC principles, lack of EMC/EMI knowledge, incorrect applications of EMC regulations, unpredicted interactions among circuit elements, or incorporation of non-compliant modules or subassemblies into the final product.
Performing pre-compliance testing greatly improves the probability of a successful first pass of full EMI compliance testing, saving you time and thousands of dollars. Companies designing products for medical, automotive, military and even multimedia applications, can benefit from investing in a pre-compliance test setup. This page discusses how adding pre-compliance testing to your product development process can accelerate product development and reduce project costs. Learn more about the basics of EMC/EMI testing.
Learn how to:
Take the mysteries out of EMI/EMC test setup
Troubleshoot to speed up debug work
Test to standards, and which standards Tek supports
Compile a complete pre-compliance testing solution
Benefits of pre-compliance testing
If you’re developing a product, you’re making financial, time, and sometimes, an emotional investment in getting the product to market. The last thing you want is to get held up by compliance testing failures. Incorporating a pre-compliance solution into your work processes provides numerous benefits, including:
Early identification of potential EMI/EMC issues that may delay time-to-market and increase development costs
Reduction of EMI/EMC related costs
Increased confidence in your product before you take it to the test house
Immediate feedback on the impact of design changes
Flexibility to test on your schedule
Good EMC design techniques are not too difficult to implement if they are introduced at the earliest stages of design. If modifications need to be made later in the design to meet EMC requirements, it becomes much harder.
Take the mysteries out of EMI/EMC test setup
A typical radiated test set-up with a Tektronix RSA500 USB spectrum analyzer.
EMI/EMC pre-compliance testing doesn’t have to be hard or excessively time consuming. Based on customer feedback, Tektronix developed next-generation software with ease of use and functionality in mind, to provide pre-compliance testing for radiated and conducted measurements.
Setting up EMI/EMC pre-compliance testing starts with SignalVu-PC. This latest version of SignalVu-PC now comes with an additional option called EMCVu. EMCVu features an easy-to-use setup wizard, built-in standards and accessory setup with push-button selection capabilities. Whether you are setting up an Open-Air Test Site (OATS), or testing in your lab, EMCVu streamlines the capture and removal of ambient noise from your measurements to increase the accuracy of your pre-compliance tests without an anechoic chamber.
To learn more about using EMCVu with real time spectrum analyzers and accessories to perform pre-compliance tests for radiated and conducted emissions.
If you’re interested in trying a free 30-day trial of EMCVu, please click on the button below.
Standards supported by Tektronix EMI/EMC pre-compliance solutions
Tektronix’ EMCVu pre-compliance software supports EMC standards including CISPR, FCC and MIL-STD for many types of devices. To automate testing, EMCVu provides a built-in standards table allowing you to choose the applicable standard for your product and the region it will be sold in. EMCVu also allows you to configure standards not included with the ability to set frequency ranges or limit line tables for your chosen standard.
A quick summary of supported standards is below:
MARKET SEGMENTS
Equipment Type
STANDARDS
IEC/CISPR
CENELEC/EN
FCC
MIL-STD
DEF-STAN
ISM MEDICAL
Industrial, scientific and medical equipment
CISPR 11
EN 55011
CFR Title 47 Part 18
Medical electrical apparatus
EN 60601-1-2
AUTOMOTIVE
Vehicles, boats and internal combustion engines
CISPR 12
EN 55012
CFR Title 47 Part 15(*)
Components and modules on board vehicles
CISPR 25
EN 55025
MULTIMEDIA
Sound and TV broadcast receivers
CISPR 13
EN 55013
CFR Title 47 Part 15
Information technology and telecommunications equipment (ITE)
CISPR 22 (superseded by EN55032)
EN 55022 (superseded by EN55032)
Professional audio/video/multimedia equipment
CISPR 32 (replaces CISPR 13 and 22)
EN 55032
APPLIANCES
Electrical devices, household appliances and tools
CISPR 14-1
EN 55014-1
CFR Title 47 Part 15
LUMINAIRES
Fluorescent lamps and luminaires
CISPR 15
EN 55015
CFR Title 47 Part 15
MILITARY
Military equipment and systems
-
-
-
MIL-STD-461G
DEF-STAN 59-411
A complete pre-compliance solution
To affordably speed you on your way, Tektronix offers a complete EMI/EMC pre-compliance testing solution including software, spectrum analyzers, accessories and EMCnear-field probes.
EMC Software
Tektronix EMI/EMC pre-compliance solution starts with SignalVu-PC with EMCVu software. As a plug-in to SignalVu-PC, EMCVu provides a single user interface for all your pre-compliance needs.
Spectrum Analyzers
To provide fast, accurate measurements to assist you in finding EMI/EMC issues quickly, Tektronix offers a full line of affordable Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers. Real-Time Spectrum analyzers provide significant advantages over traditional swept enabling you to capture infrequent EMI bursts.
Troubleshooting tips to speed up debug work
Before you invest the time and money in final product certification testing, you want confidence that your device is ready to go to the test house. When you run into a problem, you want the right tools that allow you to focus on problem areas quickly, identify the cause and take steps to remediate without incurring costly delays.
To efficiently debug, look for a solution that lets you quickly identify areas of concern and provides the level of signal insight that captures intermittent offenders. This is delivered by a combination of hardware and software.
Some of capabilities you should look for in your software solution include:
Quasi-Peak detector which lets you bypass non-failures and zero in on frequencies of interest.
Harmonic Check which allows you to test only specific harmonics and find where those emissions come from on a board using a near field probe.
Harmonic Markers which enables finding emissions at harmonics of a known frequency.
Multiple Traces allowing you to compare the Device Under Test (DUT) to Ambient Noise, previous iterations of a Device, etc.
Automated or manual multi-failure re-measurement, allowing you to determine if a failure is intermittent or reoccurring.
Report multiple measurements in multiple formats in the same user configurable report.
With hardware, Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers make EMI debug much easier. Some of the benefits provided by a real-time spectrum analyzer include:
The ability to capture transient and intermittent signals.
The ability to debug multiple sources at the same frequency.
Instantaneous feedback – traditional swept spectrum analyzers sweeps can take longer and result in failure in capturing important signals.
Additional information on troubleshooting techniques are available in the “Practical EMI Troubleshooting” application note that you can download by clicking on the button below.
Troubleshooting EMI with mixed domain oscilloscopes
To root out sources of radiated emissions that lead to EMI issues, it's critical to identify the makeup of the emissions. Next, one must identify the aggressors and the coupling mechanisms. Using a mixed domain oscilloscope like the 4, 5 or 6 Series MSO with Spectrum View, one can capture a synchronized view of spectrums and time domain waveforms for fast identification of the culprits.
Any analog channel can be viewed as a waveform, spectrum, or both
Plot and trigger on changes in RF frequency or magnitude
Spectrums and time domain waveforms are synchronized to correlate RF and time domain events for faster identification of root cause
Spectrum controls such as center frequency and RBW are independent of time domain controls, allowing optimization of spectrum and waveform displays
New - EMCVu, an all-in-one EMI/EMC pre-compliance software solution
Engineers now have a fast, easy, accurate and affordable way to determine if your new product designs are ready to submit to the test house. This video covers new EMCVu features, including: push button support for multiple standards, automated multiple measurement/multiple format reporting, ambient noise calibration and comparison, harmonic markers and faster scans using peak detector and spot measurements with quasi-peak and average detector failures.
Low Cost EMI Pre-compliance Testing using a Spectrum Analyzer
This application note describes how you can use a general-purpose spectrum analyzer to perform EMI pre-compliance checks for radiated emissions and conducted emissions, to help identify major issues before sending your design to a compliance lab.
Full EMI Compliance Chamber vs Tektronix Spectrum Analyzer
In this video we compare EMI compliance results obtained using a full Compliance Receiver set-up versus a low-cost approach using a Tektronix RSA Spectrum Analyzer. You’ll see how these results correlate for unintentional radiator emissions tests and a CISPR 11 EMI conducted emissions tests in and out of the EMI chamber. Performing a pre-compliance test using the RSA Spectrum Analyzer series can assist you in detecting problems that you can address prior to a compliance test, saving you time and money by ensuring you pass expensive compliance tests the first time.
Pre-compliance software for ease of use
Pre-compliance at a fraction of the cost
Mixed domain analysis in highly-integrated oscilloscopes
Tektronix EMI/EMC pre-compliance solution starts with SignalVu-PC with EMCVu software. EMCVu provides a single user interface for all your pre-compliance needs. Simply purchase the EMCVu software license to unlock EMCVu capabilities within SignalVu-PC.
Tektronix offers a full line of Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers from the affordable RSA306B to the high performance RSA5000 Series. All Tektronix spectrum analyzers include SignalVu software for comprehensive spectrum analysis. x
These versatile oscilloscopes offer a distinctive Spectrum View that allows any analog channel to show a time domain waveform, a spectrum, or both. The time and frequency plots are synchronized to help you determine which signals are the victims and which ones are the aggressors.
Use powerful trigger, search and analysis tools to zero in on EMI signals and correlated analog, digital and RF anomalies. The MDO4000 Series includes a logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer and protocol analyzer – all synchronized for an integrated view. X
