The Engineer’s Application Overview: EMI Shielding

EMI issues affecting the high quality performance of electronic devices are becoming more challenging to address as devices run at higher frequencies and their components must fit into more crowded spaces. Problems with radiated EMI can force teams to delay product launches, scrap prototypes, and run through multiple board spins as they experiment with different measures to suppress emissions. Traditionally, engineers have used bulky shielding in their enclosures and tricks in the PCB layout like via fences and copper pour to combat EMI. Oftentimes, designers must compromise on form factor, functionality, or both due to lack of flexible solutions to suppress EMI and ultimately pass EMC testing.

Today, advanced materials companies are offering cost-effective, flexible solutions that can suppress emissions from a product and help a new design pass EMC testing. This whitepaper will serve as an introduction to some of the foundational concepts of EMI shielding, as well as several different types of shielding solutions designers can implement.