Even with a slowing world economy, new technological issues will keep the demand for EMC engineers exceeding the supply.

In an interview with CE Editor Sherrie Conroy, Todd H. Hubing, the president-elect of the IEEE EMC Society, describes an optimistic outlook for the future of the EMC industry. Hubing, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Missouri at Rolla, left IBM's Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory in 1989 to join the faculty at UMR because he wanted to spend less time fixing EMC problems and more time trying to understand them. Here he shares some of his insights.

Q. What do you see as the industry's key issues in light of the current economic and global conditions?

A. Well, perhaps the most obvious trend we've observed in the past year has been a slowing of the world economy. The telecommunications industry has been particularly hard-hit, although other industries are certainly feeling the impact. Overall, it appears that companies are being cautious about spending, but they are still supporting their EMC labs. Based on the number of unfilled job openings posted on the EMC Society's Web page, I believe that the demand for qualified EMC engineers still exceeds the supply, although the gap is not as great as it was a year ago.

Downturns in the economy often present good opportunities for EMC engineers to get up to speed on the latest developments in their field. It's hard to take classes or do research when you're constantly putting out fires at your company. I'd encourage anyone who has more free time as a result of the slower economy to use this time to become better informed.

Q. What are the most critical technical challenges for EMC engineers in 2002?

A. One of the key technical challenges EMC engineers are beginning to face is the proliferation of wireless devices. Wireless technologies present a few technological challenges that EMC engineers in general haven't had to cope with. Digital circuits have to coexist with analog and RF circuits in more products than ever before. Designing these products to be reliable at the lowest possible cost is a significant technical challenge.

On-chip EMC design presents another significant challenge. We are seeing more designs implemented on a single chip (or multichip modules). When these devices are built into a system, they can be a significant source of EMI. We've seen good devices and bad devices in our lab. Unfortunately, there are very few guidelines to help chip designers create consistently good devices. There is also a need for more-meaningful standards and test procedures for evaluating semiconductor device EMC.

Q. How are technological developments affecting the goals and work of the EMC Society in 2002?

A. We are constantly reevaluating our organization and restructuring when necessary to keep pace with changes in technology. We recently created a new technical committee devoted to signal integrity. Signal integrity and EMC are closely related fields, but have traditionally been the responsibility of different people within a company. Now we are seeing products that send signals between devices or systems on copper at hundreds of megabits (or even gigabits) per second. At these data rates, signal integrity engineers need to be well versed in EMC, and EMC engineers must be aware of signal integrity issues. The distinction between the two areas is blurring. The EMC Society has always provided a forum for technical papers and presentations on signal integrity. TC-10, the technical committee for signal integrity, will formally promote and encourage this trend.

Q. As an expert in electromagnetic modeling, what do you believe are some of the key advances in this area that can translate into improvements in the reduction of radiated EMI in products? How will advances in computational tools affect the direction of EMC research and EMI solutions for
industry?

A. At the university, EM modeling tools play a critical role in our research. Modeling results and measurement results help us to understand exactly how a particular configuration behaves. We can model radiated emissions, radiated susceptibility or transient susceptibility problems using computer tools. Although any given computer model has its limitations and no model is appropriate for all situations, measurements also have limitations and are not always practical. Applying both models and measurements to the same problems, we can often get a pretty good idea of how a system behaves.

Despite the tremendous improvements we have seen in raw computing power and clever new modeling techniques over the past couple years, I would have to say that the most significant advances have been to the user interfaces on many computer modeling codes. Codes are just beginning to get easy enough for engineers to use without spending hours or days setting up each new problem. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Today's codes play an important role in EMC research. However, until we see user interfaces that guide the user through the modeling process while ensuring that the modeling results accurately convey what the user wanted to know, I don't believe computer modeling codes will be widely used in EMC compliance labs.

Q. How can the EMC Society help manufacturers continue to improve methods for designing EMC-compliant products?

A. A key function of the EMC Society is to facilitate communication between manufacturers, EMC compliance engineers, EMC researchers, and EMC educators. The state of the art in electronic design advances rapidly. EMC engineers who don't keep up with changes in device technology, packaging technology, standards, test methods, software tools, debugging techniques, etc., can't provide optimum EMC solutions for their companies.

The EMC Society has a variety of programs designed to keep EMC engineers informed of issues relevant to their profession. Our most visible projects are our annual symposium, IEEE EMC Transactions, and the IEEE EMC Society Newsletter. We sponsor a variety of projects including our distinguished lecturer program, chapter activities, EMC education projects, and standards development projects. We are constantly looking for new ways to serve the EMC profession.

Q. What areas are the IEEE EMC Society's primary focus for new standards?

A. This is a question that would best be answered by Don Heirman, our vice president for standards. However, one activity that I am particularly excited about is a project recently approved by the IEEE Standards Association Board to develop a formal standard and recommended practice for evaluating computer modeling and simulation tools. The IEEE EMC Society's Standards Development Committee, chaired by Steve Berger, is sponsoring this project with technical support provided by TC-9, the society's technical committee for computational electromagnetics.

There is an urgent need for standards that can be used to compare different modeling codes. Market literature and word-of-mouth are not reliable ways of determining whether a specific code will be able to meet a customer's modeling needs. I believe a meaningful and comprehensive set of standards will have a significant positive impact on the quality and usability of electromagnetic modeling software. We should also have fewer disenchanted customers, which should translate to more users and a significantly greater market.

Q. What are the EMC Society's most critical relationships with other organizations in the coming year?

A. I can think of several relationships that are critical, but one that we are particularly concerned with at this time is our relationship with other organizations that sponsor EMC symposiums worldwide. In the past, we have been proud to be associated with a variety of conferences and symposiums such as EMC Zurich, EMC Europe, the Wroclaw Symposium, and conferences in China and Japan. In our efforts to be more international, we have stepped up our level of involvement in these conferences and others outside the United States. However, the number of international EMC symposiums has grown significantly in the past few years. To some extent, these symposiums compete for attendees and exhibitors. In the coming year, the EMC Society will be working closely with the organizations that sponsor these symposiums. We believe it is in the best interests of the EMC profession to help as many of these symposiums succeed as possible. This is most likely to occur if the different organizations cooperate on matters such as scheduling and technical scope.

Todd H. Hubing can be reached via e-mail at hubing@umr.edu.