What Every Product Development Manager and Executive Needs to Know About EMC

The bottom line is that any electrical product containing transmitting or digital circuitry (that generates and uses timing pulses in excess of 9KHz) must comply with various regulated standards� by law. It's your responsibility as a product development manager or executive to see to it that the products you develop for the marketplace do comply.

What types of equipment and products are we talking about?

Most electronic products that transmit or receive energy or contain a microcomputer, and which are marketed for sale must comply.

Examples are:

Medical & scientific - (patient monitoring equipment, drug delivery systems, computer-controlled equipment, diagnostic products�)
Commercial (TVs, PCs PDAs, cell phones, smart toys�)
Industrial (coffee roasters, assembly robots, telephone systems, public communications systems�)
Military products (communication systems, radar systems, computers�)

It's a fact today that the ubiquitous microcomputer resigns most electronic products to compliance.

However, there are some types of products that do not need to comply with the standards we will be discussing.

Examples are:

Transportation equipment.
Industrial, commercial, and medical test equipment.
Specialized medical computing devices such as CT and MRI scanners.
Appliances such as microwave ovens and dishwashers.
Power control systems utilized by public utilities.

Who requires and enforces EMC compliance?

Standards & Regulatory organizations in most every country have determined what levels of EMC effects they feel are 'safe' in various environments such as medical, consumer, industrial and government (military). They set the standards that must be followed; here are some pertinent domestic and non-domestic agencies:

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