John R. Barnes KS4GL, PE, NCE, NCT, ESDC Eng, ESDC Tech, PSE, SM IEEE
December 4, 2011
jrbarnes@iglou.com
These web pages have brief summaries of 330+ standards/ amendments in 120 families of EMC/EMI/ESD standards for the types of commercial electronic products that dBi tests for clients. To help you find pertinent standards, they are indexed four ways:
Some families of United States (US) EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
Some families of Canadian EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
Some families of European Union (EU) EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
Even if you think you know which EU standards (European Norms (EN's)) apply to a product, I suggest skimming through the titles of all the Harmonized Standards under the EMC Directive, Directive 2004/108/EC, as a doublecheck:
To find more information about recent EN standards, such as the most recent version(s) and amendment(s) if you have an undated reference:
Some families of Australian and New Zealand EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
To find an Australia/ New Zealand standard corresponding to an EN, CISPR, or IEC standard:
Australia and New Zealand accept AS/NZS and some AS, CISPR, EN, IEC, and ISO standards for Emissions of unintentional radiators. For Australia, see the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) EMC standards list . A standard may be used from the Publication Date on this list, up to the Expiry Date of replaced standard for the standard which replaces it. The Radiocommunications Labelling (Electromagnetic Compatibility) Notice 2008 paragraph 6.3 says that AS/NZS, CISPR, and IEC standards may be used for up to 2 years after a replacement comes out, while paragraph 6.4 says that EN standards may be used for the same period that they are accepted by the European Union. For New Zealand, see the Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) Radiocommunications (EMC Standards) Notice 2004 No. 2 for a list of acceptable Emission standards.
Some families of Japanese EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
Some families of Chinese EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
Some families of Taiwanese EMC/EMI/ESD standards are:
The majority of worldwide EMC/EMI/ESD standards are based on, or exact copies of:
CISPR and IEC standards are recommendations, and don't become legal requirements until they are adopted by a nation or market area-- unchanged or with modifications. The adopting nation/ market area also decides when its version of the CISPR/ IEC standard takes effect, and how long it will remain in effect.
Some families of CISPR and IEC standards are:
To find additional information about recent CISPR and IEC standards:
If you need to buy a standard, I recommend checking the EUR-Lex search page, the CENELEC Advanced search page, SAI Global, and the IEC Advanced search page as described above, to find all of the identical/ equivalent versions (EN, CISPR, IEC, AS/NZS) of the standard/ amendment that you need. Then check the availability and prices from several companies that sell standards. I frequently find at least a 2:1 spread in their prices for the same document-- and since I buy an average of 15 standards/ amendments each year to keep up with our clients' testing requirements-- a few minutes doing research on the Internet saves us quite a bit of money.
For amendments to IEC and CISPR standards, you may have a choice of buying the base standard and its amendments separately, or buying a consolidated edition. A consolidated edition x.y will have base standard edition x merged with its amendments 1 through y. In a number of my recent purchases of I.S. EN standards (published by the National Standards Authority of Ireland) as .pdf files from SAI Global, I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that they included the first amendment at no extra cost.
I prefer to buy standards/ amendments as .pdf files, because I can usually download them within minutes of placing my order, versus waiting days to sometimes months to get hardcopies. I'll print out a hardcopy for our Standards Library, as our primary reference, and keep the .pdf file on my computer where I can search it using Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
These web pages can point you to regulations and standards applying to your product(s), but please refer to the regulations and standards themselves when deciding how to test your product(s). A regulation's or standard's title gives you strong clues as to what it covers, but its scope (usually section 1) tells you for sure. Carefully check the footnotes in tables, to see if your product falls into an exception that lets you avoid unnecessary tests (or sometimes requires additional special testing). Exceptions that can help you also sometimes hide in the Test Setup section (usually section 7). Also check the Test Report section (usually section 10) for any special documentation required.
Please send critiques, corrections, and/or additions to
jrbarnes@iglou.com , or
by snailmail to:
John Barnes
dBi Corporation
216 Hillsboro Ave
Lexington, KY 40511-2105
Before joining dBi, our staff was directly involved in putting over 115 major electronic products into mass production at Sycor, IBM, and Lexmark. Our staff has over 38 years experience in the computer and electronics industries, developing electronic products and electronic equipment that:
Our President, John R. Barnes, is a Professional Engineer (PE) licensed in the state of Kentucky, a NARTE-Certified Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineer (NCE), a NARTE-Certified Electromagnetic Compatibility Technician (NCT), a NARTE-Certified Electrostatic Discharge Control Engineer (ESDC Eng), a NARTE-Certified Electrostatic Discharge Control Technician (ESDC Tech), a NARTE-Certified Product Safety Engineer (PSE), a Senior Member of the IEEE (SM IEEE), and an Advanced-class amateur radio operator. He has written three books: Electronic System Design: Interference and Noise Control Techniques, which was published in English in 1987 and in Russian in 1990; and Robust Electronic Design Reference Book, Volumes I and II, which came out in 2004. John has also written articles on designing electronics for electrostatic discharge (ESD) immunity for Printed Circuit Design and Conformity magazines.
dBi Corporation can be contacted by: