EM1 Filters Design for Power Electronics

Marc0 Chiadi, Caponet, Francesco Profiuno, Albert0 Tenconi

Politecnico di Torino,
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Industriale,
C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24,
10129, Torino,Italy
Tel.: +39-011-564-7127
Fax:+39-011-564-7199
e-mail: profumo@polito.it
URL: http://www.polito.itJresearch/eeeee/

Ab- - EMl fdters for equipment, in which power There is also another point to keep into account: the
electronic converters are used, often are designed by trial Insertion Loss (IL) defined as:
and errors. Moreover, the design is carried out taking into
account the total noise produced by the equipment. Thanks
to the separation of the noise into the differential mode and
the common mode components, it is possible to understand
which of the two components is dominant and therefore the
filters design can be done straightforward by directly
ZL, = 20 log,,
3
[-
measuring the necessary common mode and differential where V
,, and V,,, are respectively the load voltage
mode attenuation. In this way, it is possible to avoid an before and after the insertion of the filter in the circuit, at
expensive and useless heavy filter and satisfy the Standards a given frequency and with source and load impedance
limits only by filtering the dominant component ming of SOQ, as shown in Fig. 1.
smaller, cheaper and optimized filter.
In this paper, the authors will show a five steps design
procedure for the design of EMI filters for power
electronics equipment.
Experimental results for a studied case are given to show
the validity of this approach.
LL
Keywords: EM1 and EMC Issues.

1. INTRODUCTION
The filter design procedure for a given tolerance
scheme in the frequency domain is well known in the
signal processing field. However, this traditional
approach can not be used directly in power electronics,
to the power supply filters design for, at least, four
fundamental reasons:
the filter does not work in impedance matching
conditions, because the power supply lines do not
have defined loads at their extremity;
the noise suppression has to be realized in a wide
band frequency, in which it is possible that the filter
components change their behavior with possible
resonance phenomena;
the type of supply (AC or DC) has a great influence
on the choice of the filter components;
the filter size is an important practice factor and for
low frequencies the size of inductors and capacitors
can become mohibitive.
Owing to all the previous points, the filter design is
usually based on experience or even guesswork, leading
to more or less optimized filters and, as a consequence,
nine time out of ten, the result is to get oversized filters.
Fig. 1: Definition of the IL.
The IL is one of the most important parameter given
by the manufacturers in their data sheets, because it
defines the filter performance. Unfortunately it is usually
useless. In fact, this parameter, has only meaning for the
performance control according to the standard quality.
When the filter is inserted in its operating circuit the
source and load impedance are not 50Q and hence, the
insertion loss can not be considered a significant
parameter to prove the filter performance [ 11-[3].
When the noise emission of a part of one equipment
fails to satisfy the standard limits, usually it is not easy to
find the origin of the noise sources. The measured
emissions are a mixture of common mode (CM) and
differential mode (DM) noises. The sources of CM and
DM noise in the equipment are of different nature and
have to be distinguished carefully [4].
Furthermore, thanks to the separation of the noise into

0-7803-7262-X/02/$10.00 0 2002 IEEE. 2027

the differential and the common mode components, it is
possible to understand which component is predominant
and therefore the filter design can be done
straightforward by directly measuring the necessary
common mode and differential mode attenuation [SI.
In [6] and [7], two devices for the noise separation
into the differential mode and common mode
components have been proposed. These devices are
useful tools, that can be used to know which is the
amount of CM and DM of the noise. Thus, the filter can
be designed only for filtering the dominant component.
In this way, it is possible to avoid an expensive and
useless heavy filter and satisfy the Standards limits using
small and optimized filter.
In this paper, the authors show the design procedure
for the design of EM1 filter for power electronics
equipment, knowing the CM or DM noise produced by
the equipment.
11.EMI FILTER DESIGN PROCEDURE
To satisfy the EM1 conducted Standard limits, the
filter has to provide the necessary attenuation, in the
bandwidth specified by the Standards, for those noise
components above the given limit. In most case, it is
sufficient to guarantee the adequate attenuation at the
first harmonic above lSOkHz, because the European
Standards for conducted emissions are valid only for
frequencies above 1SOkHz. However, each noise
spectrum produced by an equipment has to be
individually analyzed.
The procedure to design the filter can be summarized
in five steps as follow:
1. measure the noise impedance ;,,,Z
, The requirements for the filter design can be
2. measure the sink impedance Zsink;
3. measure the noise spectrum (both common and
differential mode) in the bandwidth specified by
the Standards and check is some component is
dominant;
4. set up the attenuation needed (Hstop)at a certain
frequency (fstop)for the selected mode;
5. chose one filter topology and apply the
corresponding Equation to calculate the value of
the filter components.
,,,,Z
11.1.Measurement of the noise impedance ,
The filter design requires the knowledge of the source
and sink impedance, as shown in Fig.2.
Fig.2: Equivalent circuit for the filter design.
2028
The source impedance depends on the type of the used
converter in the equipment. This impedance can be
determined by the analysis of the converter schematic,
including the parasitic elements, which are difficult to be
calculated especially for the common mode path [8].
However, to overcome the problem, if the equipment is
available, the simplest way is to measure the source
impedance.
11.2.Measurement of the sink impedance Zsink
The sink impedance is well defined when a Line
Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN) is used. In fact,
the components inside the LISN are defined by the
Standards. Therefore, the sink impedance can be
calculated easily from the existing Standards.
11.3.Measurement of the noise spectrum (both common
and differential mode) in the bandwidth specified by
the Standards check ifsome component is dominant
With the spectrum analyzer the total conducted
disturbances, in the bandwidth specified by the
Standards, can be measured.
However, with the proposed devices for the separation
of the noise into its two components (differential and
common mode), it is possible to measure both
components; checking if some one is dominant and
concentrate the filter design on this one.
11.4.Set up of the attenuation needed (Hsstop)
at a certain
frequency for the selected mode
simplified to:
0 stopband attenuation (Hstop)at the design frequency
(fstop);
low losses at line frequency;
reduced number of components and then low cost.
From the spectrum analysis, it can be determined the
frequencies bandwidth where the noise is above the limit
given by the Standards. Hence, the required attenuation
for a certain frequency can be set up.
11.5.Choice of onefilter topology and calculation of the
filter components value
The attenuation requirements can be satisfied using
different types of filters and different filter orders. The
transfer functions for different filter orders are shown in
Fig.3. A certain optimization criteria like minimum cost,
volume, weight has to be defined, to choose the optimal
filter [9].
The adopted design procedure is based on the use of
the chain matrix "A" [ 8 ] . The advantage of the chain
matrix "A" is that each element of a circuit can be
chained. In this way, each element of the filter can be
described as a chain matrix making easier and faster the
calculation of the transfer filter function.
 1 OdB

H(O 0.1 -2068

- QP
- AV
0.0'
-
-4048
H,.

0.001
.60dB
10' I 10' 10'
"l50k 300k 500k IM 2M 3M 4MSM 7M 1OM WM
Frequency (Hz) F'w fWl

Fig.3: Transfer functions for different filter orders. Fig.4: Total conducted emission of the device under
test.
For the design of filters, it is necessary to take into
account the source and sink impedance, so that, with The design procedure shown in the previous section,
reference to the Fig.2, the transfer function is given by can be applied.
the following equation:

III. I . Measurement of the noise impedance ZsoUrce

The source impedance for the common mode has been
measured and its value is Z,,,,,=l/CjOS.5nF).

where All, A12, A21 and A22 are the elements of the
matrix A. 111.2. Measurement of the sink impedance &ink
The required specification (Hstop at fstop) can be The sink impedance is given by the LISN impedance
reached using a first, a second or a third low pass filter.
Zsi,k=50Q.
The calculation of the transfer function for each of these
type of filters has been camed out using high frequency
approximation, which neglects all terms of cd for k<n,
111.3. Measurement of the noise spectrum (both
where n is the filter order and it is summarized in Table
common and differential mode) in the bandwidth
I.
specijied by the Standards check if some
The calculated transfer functions for each type of filter
component is dominant
must be normalized to the transfer function without filter
to give the insertion loss transfer function & (a), With the realized devices, the total conducted
defined as: disturbances have been separate in its two components:
the common and the differential mode, as shown in
Fig.5.

In the next section, this filter design procedure will be

applied to an equipment that does not satisfy the
requirements specified by the European Standards.

UI. THE STUDIED CASE

As an example, a video game has been used as
Equipment under Test (EAT.). This equipment is a great
source of noise and does not satisfy the compliance with "l5Ok 300k SOOk IM 2M 3M 4MSM 7M IOM 30M
mi
the European EMC Standards EN 50081-1, both for the
quasi peak (QP) and the average (AV) emission values, Fig.5: Differential and common mode conducted
as shown in Fig.4. emission of the device under test.

2029
 TABLE I
FILTERS: CHAIN MATRIX AND TRANSFERFUNCTION
-
Filter Schematic Chain Matrix Transfer function

L L

lS'
order 'sink 'sink

lS'
order

Lc

rd IC
order

CL

2nd I L
order
I"

LCL
3rd
order

-
CLC
I
L
I
I
31d
order IC IC

2030
 It can be seen, that the common mode component has
higher influence than the differential one. The windings are symmetric and all the flux remains
in the core, then L = M, so this filter has no influence on
the differential mode component, but selectively places
111.4. Set up of the attenuation needed (Hstop) at a an inductance 2L in series with the two conductors to the
certainfrequency atop)
for the selected mode common mode currents..
For the common mode component, according to the
To reduce the noise is sufficient to minimize the Eq.(2) for the f' order L filter and the Eq.(3), the total
common mode component.
required inductance value is:
Usually, it is sufficient to guarantee the adequate
attenuation at the first harmonic above 15OlcHz.
However, in this case, it is not easy to discriminate each
harmonic from the spectrum analysis, because of the
complexity of the equipment. We can see that the
common mode spectrum is under the limit up to 8OOkHz, A toroidal choke transformer of 1.- f 20% for
and the first large value above the limit is at 870kHz. each winding has been realized and it is shown in Fig.8;
Thus, the spectrum is sometimes above the limit and the total inductance for the common mode component is
sometimes below the limit. Owing to this critic spectrum 3.2mH (L+M).
of the common mode component, to be sure of being
below the limits all over the bandwidth, an attenuation of
4OdB (Hsto,,=O.Ol)at f,t0,=870kHz has been set up.

111.5. Choice of one$lter topology and calculation of

thefilter components value
Owing to the dominant presence of the common mode
component, the f' order L filter with two winding in
series to each line phase has been chosen. In this way,
the flux due to the two common mode currents is added
in the core, whereas the flux due to the two differential
mode currents is subtracted in the core, and the Fig.8: Realized toroidal choke transformer.
functional signals are not affected by the presence of the
The insertion of the realized filter is shown in Fig.9.
filter.
The equivalent circuit of the filter for the common
mode component is shown in Fig. 6 in which L is the
inductance and M is the coupling inductance.
Equipment
Power
SUPP'Y under
Network

Test
I
Fig.6: Equivalent circuit of the filter for the common
mode component. Fig.9: Insertion of the realized filter.

The contribution to the impedance due to the common The results given by the insertion of the realized filter
mode component is given by the sum of L and M. are shown in Fig.10. We can see that at 870kHz the
On the other hand, the contribution to the impedance common mode component is reduced to 40dB and also
due to the differential mode component, is given by the all over the bandwidth is under the Standard limit. This

-
difference of L and M as shown in Fig.7. result shows the validity of the adopted method.
Owing to the non ideal leakage inductance of the
10 L-MdrO choke transformer, also the differential mode is reduced,
a' as shown in Fig. 11. Therefore an additional benefit from
the non ideal behavior of a component that is not usually
desired has been added.
IQ C-Mrb After using the common mode choke, the total
conducted noise in reduced under the limits imposed by
Fig.7: Equivalent circuit of the filter for the differential the Standard, both for the quasi peak and the average
mode component. values, as shown in Fig.12.

2031
 IV.CONCLUSIONS
The design procedure for EM1 filters design has been
presented. The approach consists of five steps: 1)
measurements of the noise impedance; 2) determination
of the sink impedance; 3) measurements of the noise
spectrum (both conmon and differential components) in
the bandwidth specified by the Standards and check if
some component is dominant; 4) set up of the
attenuation needed at a certain frequency for the selected
150k 300k 500k 1M ZM 3 M 4 m 7M 10M 30M mode; 5 ) choice of the filter topology and calculation of
[&I
components value to satisfy a given limit curve.
Fig.10: Common mode conducted emission before and This design procedure and the possibility to know the
noise components, make easier and optimized the filters
after the insertion of the choke transformer for
design. In this way, the Standards limits can be satisfied
the device under test.
using this attractive solution less expensive than a
commercial one.
90 Experimental results for the studied case show that
80 only a small and inexpensive choke transformer can be
70 used to suppress drastically the noise.
KO - m
50 DM

40
choke v.REFERENCES
30 B.Audone, L.Bolla, Principi di Compatibilita
Elettromagnetica,Alenia Technical Reports, September 1992.
20 C.R.Paul,Introductionto ElectromagneticCompatibility,New
IO York, Wiley, 1992, Book.
L.Tihmyi, Electromagnetic Compatibility in Power
15Ok 3Wk 500k 1M 2M 3 M 4 M S M 7 M IOM 30M Electronics, New York, IEEE Press, 1995, Book.
[&I
C.R.Pau1, K,B.Hardin, Diagnosis and Reduction of Conducted
Noise Emission, IEEE Transactions on. Electromapetic
Fig. 11: Differential mode conducted emission before Commztibilitv, vol. 30, no 4, November, 1988, pp.553-560.
and after the insertion of the choke T.Guo, D.Y.Chen, F.C.Lee Separation of the Common-haode
transformer for the device under test. and Differential-Mode Conducted EM1 Noise, =I
Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 11, no.3, May, 1996,
pp.480-487.
M.Chiadb Caponet, F.Profumo, L. Ferraris, A. Bertoz, D.
Marzella Common and Differential Mode Noise Separation:
Comparison of two Different Approaches,Conf.Rec.IEEE
PESCO1, Vancouver (Canada), June 2001, pp.1383-1388.
M.Chiado Caponet, F.Profumo, Devices for the Separation of
- QP the Common and Differential Mode Noise: Design and
-vM Realization, Conf.Rec.IEEE APECO2, Dallas (USA),March
2002, pp. 100-105.
R.L.Ozenbaugh, EMI Filter Design New York, Marcel
Dekker, 1996, Book.
A.Nage1, R.W.De Doncker, Systematic Design of EMI-Fh
for Power Converters, Conf.Rec.IEEE IASOO,Rome (Italy),
October 2000, pp.2523-2525.
l5Ok 300k 500k 1M 2M 3M 4MSM 7M 10M 30M
r w

Fig.12: Total conducted emission of the device under

test after the insertion of the choke
transformer.

Thanks to the separation of the noise components and

the design procedure shown, a faster, easier and more
economical way to suppress the noise has been shown.
For the case under test only a small choke transformer
has been used to suppress drastically the noise and the
large and expensive generic filter has been avoided.

2032