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On-board shielding:
principles and practice
Tim Williams
29th September 2010
Southern Region Compliance Group
C o n s u l t a n c y a n d t r a i n i n g i n e l e c t r o m a g n e t i c c o m p a t i b i l i t y
e-mail timw@elmac.co.uk web www.elmac.co.uk phone +44 1929 558279
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Outline
Options for on-board shields
Electric or magnetic shield?
Choice of shielding material
Connection of the shield
Interfaces
Apertures
Application examples
On-board wireless
Heatsinks
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Options for on-board shields
Formed metal can
Typically tin-plated cold rolled steel, but also: plated copper, beryllium
copper, brass, nickel-silver, tin plated aluminium
Photo-chemically machined or die-cut and pressed
Conductively coated injection moulded plastic
Typically conductive paint or electroless plated nickel/copper
Multi-compartment construction
Labyrinths or conductive elastomer internal walls
Foil laminates
Microwave absorber/shield combination
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Formed metal PCB shields
custom parts
standard parts
kits
separate wall and clip-on lid
single-piece (beware re-work!)
surface mount or through-hole
Pictures
courtesy
Tecan
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0
50
100
150
200
250
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
MHz
dB
Electric versus magnetic field
There are three field types: electric, magnetic and electromagnetic
Reflection from a conductive surface of any thickness is good for electric
(E-field) and electromagnetic but poor for magnetic
Good magnetic (H-field) shielding needs either a permeable material
(LF) or a thicker conductive material (HF) for absorption
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E-field reflection
H-field reflection
Absorption
electromagnetic
reflection
Total (R + A)
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The effect of skin depth
Skin depth: = 66.1 1/(
r

r
F) mm (F in Hz)
Above 30MHz, many materials have < 20m
RF current falls 8.6dB for every penetration into material
surface

Current density
drops 8.6dB for
every penetration:
low values of give
good absorption
Skin depth
0.001
0.010
0.100
1.000
10.000
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 1000000 kHz
mm
Copper
Aluminium
Brass
Gold
Silver
Tin
Steel
Nickel
Mumetal
1kHz 10k 100k 1M 10M 100M 1G
Commercial radiated
frequency range
Varying
r
vs.
frequency
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Choice of material for the shield
For high frequency and low frequency
E-field applications any metal will do,
although higher conductivity is better
because of , thickness is hardly important
choice determined by mechanical, assembly
and environmental considerations
For low frequency H-field applications a
permeable metal is needed
greater thickness and
r
gives greater absorption
although, some magnetic field cancellation
occurs through current flow in a "shorted turn"
conductive shield
SMPS, audio
and power
transformers,
magnetic
sensors
Microprocessors
and VLSI ICs,
wireless on
board, hi-Z
circuits
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On-board E-field shielding
PCB1
through hole pin
connections to
ground plane
PCB2 (or chassis)
Capacitive coupling from noisy parts ... is eliminated by shield
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Where and how to connect?
An on-board shield will normally be used in conjunction with a circuit 0V
plane
an inadequate plane will limit the effectiveness of the shield
The shield should be connected to this plane with the lowest possible
inductance, to prevent it becoming "live"
implies multi-point or continuous connection all around the shield base
V
Device(s) to be shielded referenced to 0V plane
0V plane
Capacitive coupling of noise source...
changed to capacitive coupling
of remaining noise on shield
Inductance of
connections to 0V
plane will determine
noise voltage on
shield
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Apertures
Apertures in the connection to the 0V plane will increase the inductance
of this connection
keep spacing between connections to a minimum
Capacitive coupling of noise source through apertures
0V plane
V
Gaps in connection
mean increased
inductance
Apertures in the lid will cause capacitive leakage through the shield
don't put apertures near to devices with a high dv/dt noise voltage
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Filtering interfaces through the shield
2-line CM choke e.g.
Murata type DLM, DLW
3-terminal SM filter e.g.
Murata type NFM, NFL
PCB shield
bonded to
ground
plane
Filter
components
straddle
shield wall
high impedance filter
low impedance filter
series chokes
straddle the barrier
parallel capacitors
grounded with the
lowest possible
inductance
Mousehole aperture
for components
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Main circuit in shielded clean section
Plastic
enclosure
Partitioning the housing
An outer enclosure doesn't always have to be shielded
partitioning sections into clean box and dirty box is effective and can
be done with an on-board shield
but filter or isolation barriers between the sections are essential
dirty section
dirty section
external
terminals
display keyboard
filters
filters
isolators
on-board shield
partition
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Wireless on-board
Shielding can
arrangement
C1
Equivalent circuit of shielding can,
neglecting structural resonances
C1
C2
L
G
V
N
shield
Digital section Wireless module
antenna
shield
Inductance of ground plane connection L
G
Most critical component
C2
Digital section Wireless module
antenna
Near field capacitive coupling control by separation
distance of the noisiest parts (attenuation d
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in near
field), but may not be adequate
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Heatsink
Metallic enclosure
Microprocessor
PCB
Heatsinks: the problem
Noise voltage V
N
developed on processor w.r.t circuit 0V
Circulating
currents
developed in
enclosure via
C1 and C2
Radiated
emissions
from weak
points in
enclosure
Cure is to connect heatsink to circuit 0V (not to case) via
multipoint links but this might be difficult
C1
C2
Stray
capacitances
(floating
heatsink)
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Microprocessor
PCB
Heatsinks: on-board shield solution
Enclosure
shield
Thermal
conductive
washer
Thermal
conductive
compound
Heatsink
C1' is referenced to shield, which returns noise currents to circuit 0V;
minimum voltage appears on heatsink
device dissipation is conducted to heatsink through shield, which may
act as a heat spreader
C1'
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Summary
Know what frequency range is to be shielded
calculate skin depth and choose shield type/material accordingly
lay out PCBs expecting that noisy/sensitive circuits will benefit from on-
board shields
apply strict segmentation rules
allow land areas on the surface of the PCB where a shield might fit
its much easier to omit a shield that was designed in, than vice versa
design the shield in conjunction with a circuit 0V plane
create as many connections through to the plane as possible - the higher
the frequency range, the closer together must be the connection points
ensure that interfaces through the shield are adequately filtered
keep the shield box design as simple as possible
less complexity makes for a cheaper unit cost
fewer apertures make for better shielding performance
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The End
Thank you for your attention!
On-board shielding
C o n s u l t a n c y a n d t r a i n i n g i n e l e c t r o m a g n e t i c c o m p a t i b i l i t y
e-mail timw@elmac.co.uk web www.elmac.co.uk phone +44 1929 558279