ESDI delivers keynote at 2023 MN EMC Event

/ September 28, 2023

Thank you to all who attended the 2023 MN EMC Event on Sept 21!

This year, John Severson, ESDI's President and Principal Engineer delivered this year's keynote address, "SIPI, EMC, and the Edge of the Cliff -- Lessons from a Long Design Career."  

The presentation addressed SIPI and EMC issues from a designer's perspective, and featured some stories, both the past and from Mr. Severson's own career as a designer.  The highlight was telling the epic story of the first Transatlantic Cable, which sadly ended as an epic failure of signal integrity. However, in it's wake, it lead in many ways to the science and understanding we rely upon to this day to understand and analyze electromagnetics, radio waves, and transmission lines.  Many worked on resolving and understanding the challenges of the cable including William Thompson (Lord Kelvin), James Clerk Maxwell, and later, Oliver Heaviside, who was instrumental in transmission line theory, models, the Telgrapher's Equations, and the familiar vector formulations of Maxwell's equations.  Of course there are also many other shoulders upon which we stand from before and after that first cable.

Mr. Severson also spoke about SI trends, told some stories of signal integrity / emc challenges from his own career, and ways in which the "edge of the cliff" was navigated and avoided.  

Later in the day, a second presentation by Mr. Severson was "PCB Design Topics and Tips for Improved EMI and SI performance."  This presentation addressed some of the layout issues common to SI and EMI from a technical and practical standpoint, filling in some of the details left out of the more general presentation in the Keynote.

The event, as always, was a great opportunity for those tasked with dealing with EMC issues to get together, attend quality technical presentations, and to meet with test labs, equipment suppliers, and other vendors.

For more information, or for to discuss how ESDI can help with your EMC projects, contact us at (952-935-9459 or info@esdimn.com)