Today's advanced technology features high-speed and high-volume data transfer. These data-transfer capabilities benefit consumers, but they also create increasing amounts of EMI noise and heat. Read this article by Laird's Eric Trantina to learn how design engineers can use multifunctional solutions to address these growing challenges.
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For design engineers, the future is multifunctional
The signature mark of today’s advanced technology – whether it’s autonomous vehicles, sensors that create an internet of things, or home routers – is high-speed and high-volume data transfer. Unfortunately, these data-transfer capabilities pose major challenges for design engineers.
For one, these electronics generate a significant amount of electromagnetic signal interference. This wasn’t always the case for small, relatively low-powered products like routers and IoT sensors. Historically, these devices didn’t produce meaningful amounts of EMI noise. That changed as these products began to operate at the higher frequencies and with the more powerful integrated circuits and systems on chips required to facilitate enhanced data transfer and product performance. As frequencies and power levels go up, current EMI-mitigation solutions are no longer sufficient. Additionally, the shorter wavelengths at higher frequencies can sneak through gaps in shielding and interfere with product operability.
But EMI is only half of the problem. More component parts in these electronics make them more powerful, but also hotter. And since no engineer can stand a clunky design – and consumers won’t accept anything less than a sleek, lightweight piece of electronics – design engineers face a quandary: how to effectively mitigate EMI and transfer heat in tight (and shrinking) spaces. In most of these devices, there’s simply not enough room to pile a thermal interface material and heat sink on top of an EMI-mitigating absorber. And a metal component like a heat sink may even cause more signal interference. So, addressing EMI and heat separately is no longer an option.
To ensure both elegant design and high performance, design engineers need to start thinking multifunctional. Multifunctional solutions are single or companion components that do the job of multiple parts. For instance, a multifunctional solution may simultaneously serve as both a microwave absorber and a thermal interface material. Here are some keys for how design engineers can go multifunctional to address their evolving challenges.
Put every part of a device to work
Tackling today’s multifaceted design engineering challenges requires viewing every component of a device as a potential solution to EMI and heat issues. After all, given the limited real estate in these devices, design engineers must make every bit of space count.
In an autonomous vehicle, there’s a plastic bracket that holds the car’s radar unit. To minimize harmful EMI for one carmaker, we rebuilt the bracket using EMI absorbing material. This approach enhanced the performance of the entire system by better controlling signal interference. It also made optimal use of space and helped the design engineering team create an elegant and uncluttered system. As we did in this situation, design engineers should consider using smart materials in structural components whenever possible to solve signal and heat challenges.
Swappable solid-state drives present unique challenges, as well. As these drives transfer data faster, they produce more heat. But design engineers can’t use gooey thermal interface material to transfer heat away from sensitive components on an insertable drive. Instead, for one customer, we designed graphite and springs into the cage that holds the SSD. This solution transferred heat away from the drive through the structural components of the housing.
Overhaul workflows to enhance design
To successfully navigate the multifunctional future, company leaders must break down the walls that commonly exist between mechanical, thermal, RF and package design groups within a design engineering team. These groups need to understand that the problems they often address separately are increasingly interrelated. Working together to solve EMI and heat challenges early in the design process will help the team make better use of space on the board and build a more reliable and higher-performance product.
When design engineers work in silos, they often don’t identify problems until late in the design process. Approaching product design holistically will minimize the risk of having to delay production and re-engineer the product. Engineers designing a consumer-grade router may only notice a problem with EMI noise after designing the board, as they work to boost the amount of wireless coverage the router can provide. The team may have to redesign the board to accommodate the addition of EMI-reducing shields or absorbers – and only then deal with any thermal implications of the change. However, if the teams worked together from the start to pre-emptively address EMI and heat issues together, they could have integrated a multifunctional solution into the board design, leaving maximum room for performance-boosting components.
Plan for a multifunctional future
Heat and EMI challenges will only grow as electronics transfer ever-larger quantities of data faster to meet business and consumer needs. So, design engineers have no choice but to embrace the multifunctional future. Though Laird has developed a suite of multifunctional solutions that address both EMI and heat, it’s important to understand that multifunctional solutions are not just a product line. Instead, they are an approach to design engineering. Design engineers must tap material sciences ingenuity to meld different products into new solutions and develop creative, custom fixes to their most challenging issues. The future belongs to those who embrace this multifunctional approach.
Eric Trantina is a product manager at Laird Performance Materials. He specializes in helping companies across industries deploy multifunctional solutions to solve EMI, thermal and structural challenges.
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