EMI Susceptibility In Analog Circuits by Walter Bacharowski, Staff Applications Engineer, National Semiconductor Corporation

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A test circuit that can readily detect a near by cell phone is the simplified field strength meter (see Fig. 1). The antenna, approximately wave at 850 MHz, feeds a coil with a self resonating frequency in the 800 MHz to 900 MHz frequency range.

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Observing EMI susceptibility is often a problem for designers. EMI testing labs require a variety of RF test equipment and screened rooms and represent a substantial investment in resources to setup, maintain and operate. A test methodology with simple bench test hardware would be useful; the first requirement is some hardware, easily duplicated, that will be useful in observing an EMI source and its effect on analog circuits.

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Basic Field Strength Meter

Fig. 1: Schematic Of A Basic RF Field Strength Meter A field strength meter detects RF signals that it is tuned to receive and generates an output voltage that is proportional to the RF signal strength. The VOUT signal of the field strength meter, which represents the RF envelope, is observable with an oscilloscope and is shown in Fig. 2 as the yellow trace. The waveforms displayed are the result of a Sony Ericsson Z500a, a GSM cell phone that is positioned several inches from the field strength meter, establishing a connection with the basestation at the start of an outgoing call. The top yellow trace shows the initial transmission followed by the call setup transmissions with a timebase of 100 ms/division.

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The widespread and growing use of portable wireless communications devices has added additional circuit complexity and testing requirements to all electronic equipment, any of which has the possibility of being exposed to strong RF fields. While some RF fields may be strong enough to cause physical damage and failure of the exposed circuits, in the majority of cases the electronic circuitry continues to perform but experiences a shift from its normal operating point. The operating point shift by itself will not damage the circuitry but its effect on the system that the circuit is a part of can cause range of problems. An example of an irritating, but not serious, effect is the buzzing caused by cell phones in close proximity to audio equipment. On the other hand, the effect on the speed control loop of an electric wheelchair could cause erratic acceleration and deceleration and might be dangerous for the wheel chair occupant. This TechNote describes and demonstrates the shifted operating point of an analog circuit and introduces new amplifier designs that contribute to mitigating the shifted operating point.

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Referring to Fig. 2, again, the vertical scale for the yellow trace is 200 mV/division while for the purple trace it is 2 mV/division. As can be seen from the yellow trace, a relatively large signal is recovered, 1.026 Vpeak, while the output of the test circuit shows a signal response estimated at about 0.1 mVpeak. These measurements show that the proposed test hardware will measure the RF field with adequate sensitivity and does not contribute significantly to an error in measuring the amplifiers operating point shift. The use of the field strength meter output can be used in conjunction with the test circuit and an oscilloscope to form a visual coincidence detector to measure the RF fields effect on analog circuits. Fig. 3 shows the schematic of the test circuit used to measure the effects of RF on amplifiers. The amplifier is configured as a difference amplifier with unity gain. This circuit provides both of the amplifiers input pins with the same source impedance of 5 k . A stack of four nickel metal hydride batteries are used to power the test circuit and are arranged to provide a 2.4 V split supply voltage. The split supply enables the observation of positive and negative offset voltage swings during testing. Using batteries also helps to minimize the RF pickup by an external power supply from contributing to the amplifier under test output signal.

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The bottom yellow trace is a magnified portion of the top trace with in the highlighted rectangle displayed with a time base of 2 ms/division. The purple trace is the output of the device under test (DUT) circuit (see Fig. 3) but without an amplifier installed. The trace shows a very small signal present so the amplifier test set-up has a high rejection of the RF signal and any signal from the DUT circuit is predominantly from the DUT.

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Fig. 2: Output Of Field Strength Meter

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Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries

+V 10K 10K +V 5 DUT 4 + 2 10K 10K -V 3 1 VOUT BNC

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The test circuit in Fig. 3 and the field strength meter in Fig. 1 were laid out onto a printed circuit board in close proximity but electrically isolated. The PCB with the cell phone test set-up is shown in Fig. 4. They are held in position by a foam sheet, which maintained the physical spacing to minimize any effects from cell phone positioning relative to the circuits under test.

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Fig. 4: RF Susceptibility Test Set-up

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Fig. 3: Amplifier RF Susceptibility Test Circuit

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Testing Amplifiers Amplifiers can act like RF detectors and some are better detectors them others. Ideally, the amplifiers should not detect RF. Fig. 5 shows the response of an LMC7101 amplifier to the cell phone transmission. The LMC7101 detects the RF field from the cell phone and generates an offset voltage at the amplifier output. In this case the amplifier has a 12 mVpeak output offset voltage shift from a 1011 mVpeak from the RF detector. Fig. 6 shows the output of the LMC6681 amplifier with a positive offset voltage. In general, each amplifier design has its own response based on its design and internal biasing points. The actual source of the RF induced output offset voltage is the subject of many published papers and is attributed to any nonlinear transfer functions within the amplifier which act as a RF detectors and has several major sources. The first source is the ESD protection diodes connected to the amplifier inputs, output, and power supply pins. The second are the parasitic diodes formed by the isolation tubs that isolate the active elements from the substrate. A third source is the bias point and the amount of active load line used by the transistors internal to the amplifier.

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Fig. 5: LMC7701 Response To Cell Phone Transmission

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Fig. 6: LMC6881 Response To Cell Phone Transmission The concept of the rejection ratio is useful at this point. A rejection ratio for amplifiers is normally defined as:

rejection _ ratio = 20 log

Using the LMC7101 data from Fig. 5 as an example with DVo = 12 mV and DVi = 1011 mV, which is the output from the RF field strength meter, results in a RF rejection ratio of 38.5 dB. RF Rejection Ratio measured in this example is defined within the context of this experimental set-up and should not be used to compare similar values in a different experimental set-up. This technique is useful for evaluating amplifiers and measuring the RF rejection ratio under the same conditions. The results can be used to rank the amplifiers with respect to RF rejection for the conditions of this test. In addition to the amplifier susceptibility to RF the circuitry around the amplifier can aggravate the offset by conducting additional RF energy into the amplifier.
LMC7101 RF Out Test # mV 1 1010 2 918 3 958 4 974 5 970 Average 966 RF Rejection Ratio dB

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Amp Out mV 12.0 13.2 13.2 12.4 12.8 12.7 -37.6

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LMP7731 RF Out Test # mV 1 966 2 918 3 902 4 866 5 908 Average 912 RF Rejection Ratio dB

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Amp Out mV 70.2 72.4 73.6 71.0 72.8 72.0 -22.1

LMC6681 RF Out Test # mV 1 938 2 998 3 1004 4 986 5 1012 Average 987.6 RF Rejection Ratio dB RF Out LMC7111 Test # mV 1 962 2 886 3 952 4 988 5 936 Average 944.8 RF Rejection Ratio dB

Amp Out mV 6.4 3.1 7.0 6.6 7.2 6.1 -44.2 Amp Out mV 29.6 27.6 23.6 27.2 24.8 26.6 -31.0

LMV851 RF Out Test # mV 1 1038 2 1078 3 1020 4 1004 5 994 Average 1026.8 RF Rejection Ratio dB LMV796 RF Out Test # mV 1 964 2 972 3 978 4 920 5 984 Average 963.6 RF Rejection Ratio dB

Amp Out mV 0.50 0.58 0.80 0.54 0.58 0.60 -64.7 Amp Out mV 20.4 15.6 15.8 13.2 13.4 15.7 -35.8

Table 1: RF Susceptibility Measurements And RF Rejection Ratio Calculations

A selection of common amplifiers was measured to demonstrate the range of RF rejection ratios. These values were then compared that of the LMV851, an amplifier optimized to improve the RF rejection ratio. Five measurements were taken for each and the average then used to calculate the RF rejection ratio. Fig. 7 shows the LMV851 response to the cell phone transmission.

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Fig. 7: LMV851 Response To Cell phone Transmission

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The amplifiers represent a range of performance and power consumption. Three of the devices are older designs, the LMC7101, LMC6881, and LMC7111. The LMP7731, LMV796 and the LMV851 are recent designs. Specifically, the LMV851 was designed to maximize the RF rejection ratio. As can be seen from the data, the LMV851 has a higher RF rejection capability then the other amplifiers. The datasheet of the LMV851 introduces the specification EMIRR (EMI Rejection Ratio) and its measurement. While the measurement presented in this article is similar, it is different and the data in this measurement cannot be directly related to the EMIRR specification in the LMV851 datasheet although amplifiers measured with the two techniques should rank about the same at the measurement frequency. This is the reason for naming this measurement RF rejection ratio. This measurement technique measures the RF rejection ratio at a single frequency and provides a method to rank the amplifier performance with respect to the RF rejection with the assumption that the rankings are maintained at other frequencies, which may or may not be the case. This set-up could be extended to test additional frequencies with the use of an RF signal generator. This TechNote has presented a relatively simple way to observe the effects of RF energy on the performance of an amplifier and a method to quantify the effects of RF on the amplifier. Additionally, the enhanced RF rejection of the LMV851 amplifier, with an 8 MHz gainbandwidth product, was demonstrated, which incorporates technology to minimize RF susceptibility. This technology will be added to many of the new amplifier designs being developed by National Semiconductor such as the LMV861 amplifier with a 30 MHz gainbandwidth product and the LMV831, with a 3MHz gain-bandwidth product.

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Walter Bacharowski is an amplifier applications manager at National Semiconductor, where he has worked for 15 years. He earned bachelor degree in electrical engineering from Cleveland State University and has had continuing education in engineering, management, marketing, and technology. His personal interests include electronics, model rocketry, and alternative-energy technology. He can be reached at Walter.Bacharowski@nsc.com

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About The Author

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