Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC, CEM in French) is the ability of a piece of equipment to work without disturbing its electromagnetic environment and without being disturbed by it. It has two sides: emission (what the device puts out) and immunity (what it can withstand).
In the project
EMC turns up in practice long before any certification: a motor that corrupts a measurement, a cable run long enough to pick up 50 Hz, a switching converter that garbles a serial link. Good wiring practice (clean grounds, shielding, decoupling) on the electronics side is the first answer to it. The EMC Directive itself is one of the directives under CE marking — to identify and record, not to certify in a teaching project.
Standardised measurement (radiated and conducted emission, immunity, chamber testing) and detailed EMC design belong to the standards course and to the ESE discipline. This wiki limits itself to wiring reflexes and to spotting the directive.
See also
- CE marking — EMC is one of its directives
- Safety and quality — recording the standards involved
- Electronic protections — TVS and ESD protection, the hardware side of immunity
- Decoupling — clean grounds and decoupling, the first EMC answer on the board
- Standards course (colleagues) — EMC testing and design