Simulation of RF interference in Electronics

Connected electronic devices like tablets, laptops, smartphones and the diverse ecosystem of IOT products typically implement multiple RF systems. For example, a smartphone nowadays will offer connectivity for WiFi at 2.4 and 5 GHz, Bluetooth, GPS, GSM, NFC and multiple LTE Bands that need to coexist on a platform with a small form factor. Furthermore, the current generation of data buses like USB 3.0 and DDR4 run at high clock speeds with harmonics spreading well into the RF frequencies. This poses a significant challenge to the designers of such devices as the tight integration can lead to interference between these systems. Such RF interference results in performance degradation of these systems and is not acceptable.

In the first part of this webinar, we will demonstrate how a full wave 3D simulation can be used to analyze the coupling between different RF systems, antennas and digital signal lines. The analysis will be performed on a model of a modern, realistic mobile phone with a high complexity. The coupling data will then be used to estimate the possible RF interference using a completely new product: The CST interference tool. In this new system-level tool, RF systems can be defined to analyze inter-system coupling. The analysis delivers the possible occurrence of RF interference at a glance. The interference tool is fully integrated into the CST STUDIO SUITE, making it easy to run different scenarios and test mitigation strategies after the detection of possible interference.

Panelist Info: 

Andreas Barchanski received an MSc in physics in 2003 and a PhD in numerical EM in 2007 from the Technical University Darmstadt. He has joined CST’s HQ in Darmstadt in 2007 as an application engineer. Since 2012 he is Market Development Manager for EMC. Besides EMC, his main interest lies in simulation of various electronic systems ranging from high speed digital to power electronics. He has authored over 50 scientific papers, journal articles and presentations on numerical EM and its application.