EMC Considerations on PCB Design for a

High-Power Converter Control System

Indrek Roasto, Dmitri Vinnikov and Marius Klytta

Abstract - This paper presents part of a 50 kWAPS (auxiliary and their design regarding to the EMC problems. Those
power supply) control system and relevant EMC problems. three PCB are the most sensitive PCBs of the whole
The design process of three different PCBs (printed circuit system and thus need discussion.
board) in consideration of EMC is described In the analysis, The current APS is based on the half-bridge topology.
positive and negative features of developed PCBs are Therefore two PWM (pulse width modulated) signals are
discussed Finally, recommendations are made for further needed to control the IGBTs. The switching frequency
steps. was chosen 1 kHz. Due to the high blocking voltages of
IGBTs no higher frequencies could be applied. Such a low
Index Terms - electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), frequency decrease switching losses of primary IGBTs.
DC-DC power conversion, current measurement, voltage On the other hand, the electromagnetic radiation is
measurement. drastically reduced.

I. INTRODUCTION II. PCB DISIGN SOFTWARE POSSIBILITIES

Electromagnetic compatibility is a subject that most In the development process, modem PCB design
designers did not have to worry about a couple of years software was used. The whole process can be divided into
two parts: schematic and layout design. First, the
ago. Today's situation is different. Our surroundings are schematic was created. The circuit schematic serves as a
crowded with different kinds of electromagnetic devices. basis for the layout design. It insures that the layout and
EMC (electromagnetic capability) and EMI design are consistent. Today's powerful tool of the PCB
(electromagnetic interference) are the keywords in new design software is an autorouter. It means that the
electric device design. There are mainly two reasons for software can route the whole PCB automatically,
that, the electromagnetic environment is getting tougher following the routing rules specified by the user.
and the devices are very complicated and sensitive to the Autorouting has many advantages, e.g. it is much faster
interferences. In 1995 the EMC directive was introduced than manual routing, it takes EMC rules into account,
in Europe. The directive regulates both electromagnetic autorouter always optimizes track lengths and avoids
radiation and the immunity to the environmental sharp windings. The disadvantages are that it takes some
interferences. Therefore, the designer must make sure that time to set up the routing rules and the expected result
may not be ensured. Sometimes, when the PCB is too
the new device will not affect others and can also resist complicated, the autorouter is not able to route all the
the influences from outside. tracks. Thus, you still have to route some tracks
The APS control system of the current project consists manually. In the current project, a combination of manual
of the following PCBs: routing and autorouter was applied. [1]
* power supply PCBs;
* relay PCB; III. BASIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES
* optical I/0 PCB; The basic EMC principles should be followed while
* temperature measurement PCB; designing a PCB [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]:
* voltage measurement PCB; 1. Identify the noise sources and eliminate them as
* current measurement PCB; close to the source as possible. Since the source of the
* microprocessor PCB. received noise lies usually outside the system, the first
This paper describes the last three circuit boards possibility for the designer to handle noise is on the
(microprocessor, voltage and current measurement PCB) system inputs.
2. Control the path to the ground. Signals and noise
will always take the shortest path to the ground. The task
This work has been supported by the Enterprise Estonia under of the system designer is to make sure that noise will find
research and development contract EU23764 "Development of a path to the ground before leaving the system or
Auxiliary Power Supplies for the Electric Trains". reaching sensitive signals. The best way to do so is to add
I. Roasto is with the Department of Electrical Drives and Power a complete ground plane to the board.
Electronics, Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, Tallinn,
19086, Estonia (e-mail: indrek.roastoAttu.ee). 3. Avoid large current loops. Current loops are acting
D. Vinnikov is with the Department of Electrical Drives and Power like antennas, they emit and receive noise. The larger the
Electronics, Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, Tallinn, loop, the more interference there can be. Loops should
19086 Estonia (e-mail: dm.vinAmail.ee). therefore be as small as possible. The best solution for
M. Klytta is with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Giessen- high frequency signals is using a complete ground plain
Friedberg University of Applied Sciences, WiesenstraBe 14, GieBen, on one side of the PCB. The return path in the ground
35390 Germany (e-mail: marius.klytta ei.fh-giessen.de).
plane will be the track with the smallest impedance, i.e.
1-4244-1055-X/07/$25.00 C2007 IEEE.
the path exactly under the signal track. Thus, also the board is the analog part, which should be kept away from
current loop is the smallest. In case of low frequency digital signals and power lines.
signals, the return path will be the track with the smallest Positive:
DC resistance, in other words the shortest route. One * track windings are mostly 450 without sharp
thing to bear in mind is that any slits or tracks in the transitions, which reduces the radiation risk;
ground plane could block the optimal return path and lead
to undesired results. In case no ground or power plane * the layout splitting principle has been used. There
can be made, the power and ground lines should always are two zones: digital and analog, as shown in
be drawn as close as possible to each other. Fig. 2;
4. Keep the analog tracks as short as possible. * analog ground plane AGND on the bottom of the
Analog signals are the most sensitive signals to the PCB (Fig. 3).
disturbances. Negative:
5. Filter the power supply. Badly coupled power * The track V,,, is unnecessarily long and needs to
supply is one of the most common reasons for EMI be optimized (Fig. 3);
problems. The current drawn by digital electronics * ground plane is interrupted by the tracks. It
consists of short spikes occurring on the clock edges. disturbs the return paths of the signals (Fig. 3);
Those pulses in the power lines can interfere with other * no digital ground plane under the digital part of
devices that are connected with the power supply. To the board (Fig. 3);
filter these spikes, decoupling capacitors are placed as * the top side of the PCB has no power or ground
close to the component as possible.
plane (Fig. 2);
6. Avoid 900 corners and other abrupt transitions on * the input voltage +24 V creates an unnecessary
traces. It is recommended to use 450 angles instead of
900. All abrupt transitions on the traces increase the current loop as shown in Fig. 2. Since there are
radiation. also no decoupling capacitors, it can disturb the
7. Split the layout in zones. Sometimes if the PCB is analog part.
very complicated, it might be impossible to handle every V,
EMC problem at once. Therefore it might be a good idea Vl
to split the design into subparts and handle the EMC
problems individual for every zone. The basic idea is to
separate noisy parts and components from the sensitive
ones. In general, the power supply and digital part should
always be separated from the analog part.
IV. PCBs AND THEIR DESIGN
All the PCBs are double sided with the dimensions of
160x100 mm. The control system is based on the rack
system. All PCB are built into a rack as shown in Fig. 1.
They are connected with each other through a bus system
in the backside of the rack.
RELAY OPTICAL 1/0 CURRENT VOLTAGE
PCB PCB MEASUREMENT MEASUREMENT
PCB PCB
Fig. 2. Top view of the voltage measurement PCB layout.

V
POWER SUPPLY MICROPROCESSOR TEMPERATURE
PCBs PCB MEASUREMENT
PCB

Fig. 1. Control system of a 50 kW isolated DC/DC converter.

Fig. 3. Bottom view of the voltage measurement PCB layout.

A. Voltage measurement PCB
The top and bottom view of the layout of the voltage The PCB has two zones but only one analog ground
measurement PCB is shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. It has plane. The digital zone in the lower part of the board
three analog channels Vin, Vmid, VOut and one power supply should have a digital ground plane on the bottom side of
(PU2) for the sensors. The most sensitive part of this the board.
 Supply current loop

Fig. 4. Assembled voltage measurement PCB. Fig. 6. Bottom view of the current measurement PCB layout.

B. Current measurement PCB

The top and bottom view of the layout can be seen in
Fig. 5 and Fig. 6. The analog part of the board consists of
three analog channels Iw, Iout, Iin, the supply part contains
one power supply (PUI) and two voltage regulators. The
most sensitive part of the board is the analog part.
Positive:
* track windings are mostly 450 without sharp
transitions, which reduces the radiation risk;
* analog tracks have optimized lengths (Fig. 5 and
Fig. 6);
* the layout splitting principle has been used. There
are two zones: digital and analog, as shown in Fig. 7. Assembled current measurement PCB.
Fig. 5;
* analog ground plane on the bottom side of the C. Microprocessor PCB
PCB. The microprocessor board layout is presented in Fig. 8
Negative: and Fig. 9. As a control unit, a microcontroller module
* analog ground plane is interrupted by the tracks (MODULI) Phycore xc167 from Phytec was used. The
(Fig. 6); module is an integrated system, including everything that
* the top side of the PCB has no power or ground is needed to run the microcontroller xc167. The
plane (Fig. 5); microcontroller works at the frequency of 40 MHz and is
* the power supply (PUI) output (+15V) has no therefore sensitive to EMI.
decoupling capacitors (Fig. 5); Positive:
* the input voltage +24 V creates a large loop * track windings are mostly 450 without sharp
around the analog zone, as shown in Fig. 6. Since transitions, which reduces the radiation risk;
there are no decoupling capacitors, it can disturb * the layout splitting principle has been used. There
analog inputs (Iw, Iout, In). are two zones: digital and analog, as shown in
Fig. 8;
* digital ground plane (GND) on the bottom side of
the board (Fig. 9).
Negative:
* ground plane is interrupted by the tracks;
* the top side of the PCB has no power or ground
plane;
* there is no analog ground plane under the analog
zone (Fig. 9);
* the analog ground (AGND) pins in the connector
X1 are too far away from the analog zone and
signals (Fig. 8);
* digital (CC12) and analog (AN15) signals are too
close to each other and are running parallel. The
Fig. 5. Top view of the current measurement PCB layout.
digital pulses create EMI that will induce
erroneous voltages in the analog track.
 V. CONCLUSIONS
Three different PCBs were analyzed according to the
basic EMC design rules. All the PCBs had three common
problems:
1. There were tracks on both sides of the board
which lead to the interrupted ground plane. Instead of
putting tracks in the ground plane, they should be put on
the opposite board side. The idea is to keep power or
ground planes unbroken so the return paths of the signals
would not be disturbed.
2. Although the PCBs were split into zones (analog,
digital), there was always one ground plane missing.
Measurement PCBs had only an analog ground plane on
the bottom side and the microprocessor board vice versa
digital ground plane. If you use different zones on the
PCB, then it is also recommended to use the
corresponding ground planes under each zone.
AGND 3. The top sides of the boards could have either
power or ground plane. It would help to reduce the length
Fig. 8. Top view of the microprocessor PCB layout. of current loops.
As the next step, new enhanced PCBs should be
made. Even if the current PCBs work well in the lab, the
corrections in the PCB design are inevitable when the
whole system is to be marketed.
REFERENCES
[1] Eastman, N.L., "Considerations for mixed analog/digital
PCB design", in Proc. WESCON/96, pp. 297 - 301
[2] A VRO40 EMC Design Consideration, Application Note
Atmel 8 bit AVR microcontrollers, 2006.
www.atmel.com/literature.
[3] Armstrong, M. K., "PCB design techniques for lowest-cost
EMC compliance, 2", in Electronics & Communication
Engineering Journal, Oct 1999, Vol.: 11, Issue: 5. pp. 218-
226.
[4] Hubing, T., "PCB EMC design guidelines: a brief annotated
list", in Proc. 2003 IEEE International Symposium on
Electromagnetic Compatibility. pp. 34 - 36, vol.1.
[5] John, W., "Remarks to the solution of EMC-problems on
printed-circuit-boards", in Proc. Seventh International
Fig. 9. Bottom view of the microprocessor PCB layout. Conference on Electromagnetic Compatibility, 1990.
pp. 68 - 72.
[6] Ghose, A.K.; Mandal, S.K.; Deb, G.K., "PCB design with
low EMI", in Proc. International Conference on
Electromagnetic Interference and Compatibility, 1995.
pp. 69 - 76.

Fig. 10. Assembled microprocessor PCB.