Interview with Vincent Greb

Featured Engineer

Vincent Greb

Vincent Greb - President of EMC Integrity, Inc.

How did you get into electronics/engineering and when did you start?

As a physics major in college, I was given the opportunity to work at a storm research lab. This got me into a lab/engineering environment and some contacts there set me up with an internship at an R&D company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Because I had some familiarity with lightning, I was assigned to work on a couple of projects that were related to electromagnetic pulse (EMP). I gained some valuable experience and worked under some excellent senior-level engineers, but was still struggling trying to figure out what area of electronics to pursue. I got a huge break when I was assigned to work under a senior EMC engineer who was an excellent mentor. I knew the test automation software that he needed to make his measurements, and as a result, I had the privilege of working for him for about six months. During that period, he taught me an immense amount about electromagnetic compatibility. When he left the company, I was asked to take over his position as the resident EMC expert. I certainly was no expert at that time, but from that point on I was doing EMC.

I worked for a couple companies in Albuquerque before relocating to Colorado in 1989 where I began working for Ball Aerospace. I worked on some very interesting projects at Ball and learned a great deal, but wanted to get into the commercial world, so I went to work for a small commercial company. In the meantime, I was experiencing success with “moonlighting” as an EMC consultant, so I formed EMC Integrity, Inc. in November of 1993. When I got laid off from my daytime job in May of 1994, I made the decision to go full time and make it on my own with EMC Integrity.

What was the company like in 1994?

In the beginning EMC Integrity solely did design consulting. That was going very well but we needed a reliable lab to test the designs. There were a lot of requests from our customers to start an engineering lab, which we did in 1995. We later decided to turn it into a full compliance immunity test lab and received our first accreditation in 1997. We could perform immunity testing, engineering troubleshooting, debug, find and fix, and mitigation for clients. EMC Integrity quickly established a reputation for technical excellence and slowly began to increase in market share. However, we were somewhat limited because we could not perform formal emissions testing, so in 1998 we established a relationship with another company and we used their 10-meter chamber on second shift to offer our clients compliance-level emissions testing.

How long did you keep that relationship before you decided that you needed to build your own 10-meter chamber?

It was about 2004 when we decided that it just made sense to have all of the testing done under one roof and we began plans to set up up our own 10-meter chamber. This required building our own facility, which we did. We opened the doors of our new building in February of 2006.

What was your business like after you built your 10-meter and moved to a new space?

When we opened our doors, all we had to do was let the word out. It turns out there were a lot of people that wanted to use EMC Integrity based on our reputation, but did not like the idea of taking their product to an OEM’s lab and working second shift. Our clients were very pleased to have emissions and immunity testing under one roof, and business grew pretty dramatically after that.

Our growth has also been spurred by our ability to do International Submittals for the Far East including Korea, Taiwan, Russia, and China. We are able to do this through our Nemko Partner Lab Program. Nemko is a Notified Body for EMC (among other things) in the European Union, and it’s great to have access to their expertise. Using their world-wide network, we can get clients’ products EMC-approved for anywhere in the world. Since Nemko also offers product safety testing, EMCI can offer clients a virtual one-stop shop for compliance testing.

With the new additions and expansions to your lab, did you have to build another building?

After a few years in our new building, things were already getting crowded and we were working either second shifts or weekends to accommodate clients. After doing some trade-off studies, we determined the most cost-effective approach would be to add on to our existing building.

Our primary need was more bandwidth in our existing 10-meter, so the centerpiece of our expansion was a second 10-meter chamber. However, we didn’t simply duplicate what we already had. We built a chamber that would not only increase our bandwidth, but would allow us to test larger products. Thus, our new chamber has a 4-meter turntable, 8’ by 10’ access doors, much bigger support power, and a 16’ by 26’ shielded ante-chamber that resides beneath the turntable. This arrangement makes setup of even large, I/O-intensive products much easier.

Do you use more than one antenna mast in the new chamber?

The new chamber has two antenna masts. We have a standard antenna mast that resides at the 10-meter distance covering the frequency range from 30 MHz to 1 GHz. We also have a second boresight antenna mast at the 3-meter distance. Boresight antennas are used for testing above 1 GHz, where signals become more directional. The standard antenna used from 1-18 GHz is a broadband horn. The function of the boresight mast is to keep the antenna pointed at the unit under test as it travels from 1 to 4 meters in height.

What would you recommend to electrical engineers working on products if they wanted to do some work to make sure their products will do well in terms of EMC testing?

Test early. Test as soon as you can. What often happens is that compliance testing is not performed until the end of the product design cycle. The closer you get to product completion, the more the design solidifies. Consequently, your options for change are reduced. A lot of people don’t realize that unless a product is designed to meet electromagnetic compatibility requirements, there is about a 95 percent chance that it will fail. There is a huge value in identifying problems earlier in the project development cycle. If you identify a problem early, you can engineer a solution. If you wait until the design cycle is completed, oftentimes you are forced to implement some sort of “band-aid” fix. In addition to being a more cost-effective approach, addressing compliance problems early also greatly reduces the possibility that product shipment schedules will be delayed.

Do you see more problems in radiated immunity or conducted immunity?

I think that it is 50/50. While these tests are related, they are really two different animals. Radiated immunity is higher frequency than conducted immunity. Radiated immunity is a free-field type of test where conducted is lower frequency, and designed to simulate the current that would be induced on cables if they were exposed to a lower frequency EM field. However, a lot of times if you see problems on one, you will see problems on both.

What direction do you see your business heading in the next few years?

The future looks to be quite bright. With our increased throughput capability and our larger chamber, we are very well set to test larger and higher-end information technology equipment, medical systems, measurement systems, and industrial electronics. We have also begun testing intentional transmitters which are devices that intentionally transmit radio frequency energy to other devices. This all presents EMC Integrity with a huge opportunity for growth.

What challenges do you foresee in your industry?

I think one of the biggest challenges faced in not only the compliance industry, but the electronics industry in general, is education. My story of how I got into EMC is very common among EMC engineers. Nearly all of us mentored under EMC gurus who were kind enough to take the time to teach us the fundamentals of the discipline. Most engineers who graduate haven’t even heard of electromagnetic compatibility, compliance requirements, or compliance testing. There are a few universities in the country which have introduced EMC courses in their curricula, but the majority of universities only mention EMC in passing, if at all. As a result, most electrical engineers start doing designs at companies with no idea of how to design for compliance. So now you’re back to the scenario of having product shipment delayed by compliance issues, band-aid fixes rather than engineered solutions, and the cost overruns associated with both of these. The biggest challenge is definitely education.

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