Chicago

Jonathan Dinsmore (left) receives the fifth Chicago Chapter Scholarship Award from Bob Hofmann, Treasurer. Wadda home lab!!	Yummy flatbreads (foreground) were enjoyed at the Chicago Chapter Holiday Party buffet.
Ray Klouda of Elite calls the Chicago Chapter Holiday Party Trivia Quiz.	Bocci tournament prizes at the Chicago Chapter Holiday Party were awarded by Jack Black (far left) of DLS Electronic Systems to Shaun Clark (center) and Dwayne (Santa) Davis.

Jerry Meyerhoff, Chapter Secretary, reports that the Chicago IEEE EMCS Chapter held its 8th annual holiday party on December 2. They

Bocci ball at the Chicago Chapter Holiday Party was a hit for Andrea Spellman of UL, the event organizer.

transitioned the party’s longstanding organizing leadership from Ida Krozel of Electronic Instrument Associates to Andrea Spellman of UL, who tested a new venue, PinStripes in South Barrington. There they tried their hand at bocci ball (Italian lawn bowling) and a more casual light meal of tasty hot flat-breads, appetizers, veggies and cold beverages. The two person teams went through several layers of eliminations to select the winners who received some nifty prizes. Since most of the Chapter members were new to bocci ball, it really leveled the playing field and allowed everyone to participate and chat through the leisurely paced games. Ray Klouda of Elite Electronic Engineering provided his ever-popular Holiday Trivia Quiz. Jack Black of DLS Electronic Systems, as Chapter Chairman, judged the close contest. Scholarship chair, Bob Hofmann of Hofmann EMC Engineering, announced the fourth annual recipient, Jonathan Dinsmore, a third semester engineering student at Geneva College. Jonathan is also a licensed Amateur Radio operator (KC9EFW), a leader in his student IEEE Chapter, and maintains a high GPA. He is also on a team designing a rail gun! Jonathan interned in EMC testing at Elite Electronic Engineering, clearly demonstrating his interest in the art and science of EMC, one of the selection criteria. The Chicago Chapter will continue to solicit scholarship candidates from the area and would appreciate any nominees and contributions to the fund from individuals or entities. Look to www.emcchicago.org for news of meetings and events, skillfully maintained by the webmaster, Frank Krozel of Electronic Instrument Associates. The programs committee of Andrea Spellman of UL and Tom Braxton of Shure Brothers are putting together a great speaker lineup for 2010. Chicago is looking forward to their 12th MiniSymposium in May, organized by Frank Krozel. The Chapter’s experienced Executive Committee is looking forward to another great year of serving the needs of its members.

Germany
Chapter Chair Frank Sabath reports that the German EMC Chapter had a busy winter quarter. In October 2009, the German EMC Chapter welcomed the president of the EMC Society, Elya Joffe, as the keynote speaker at a technical meeting in Dresden. Elya’s talk on “Frequently Asked EMC Questions (and Answers)” attracted 18 participants, coming from all parts of Germany, to spend a Saturday afternoon at the Dresden University of Technology. The participants were rewarded with an outstanding presentation and deep technical discussions. With a smile one participant concluded that he learned that most EMC related questions could be answered with, “It depends!” More technically, the presentation was to emphasize that common engineering sense often provides better design results than the application of EMC related design rules. After the technical meeting, the EMC 2015 working group of the German Chapter visited the Dresden International Congress Center and discussed key aspects of the German application with Elya Joffe. Dresden is a candidate to host the IEEE International Symposium on EMC in 2015. The location, both the meeting facilities as well as the beautiful environment, impressed Elya. The chair of the working group, Hans-Georg Krauthäuser, pointed out that the German Chapter choose Dresden primarily because it has the largest cluster of

Elya Joffe (left) congratulated Frank Sabath, the 2009 Laurence G. Cumming Award recipient, at the Germany Chapter meeting held in Dresden.	The EMC 2015 working group visiting the Dresden International Congress Center included, from left, Frank Sabath, Elya Joffe, Karl-Heinz Gonschorek, Ralf Jacobs, Ralf Vick, and Hans Georg Krauthäuser.
Jan-Luiken terHaseborg (left), Chair of the Award Committee and Frank Sabath, Germany Chapter Chair, presented the 2009 Best Ph.D. Thesis-of-the-Year Award to Volker Vahrenholt (center).	Jan-Luiken terHaseborg (left), Chair of the Award Committee and Frank Sabath, Germany Chapter Chair, presented the 2009 Best Master Thesis-of-the-Year Award to Evgeni Genender (center).

microelectronics/information and communication technology in Europe. In Dresden, the electronics industry sector encompasses 1,200 enterprises with more than 40,000 employees. During a tour through the old town of Dresden, Elya was also highly impressed by the cultural heritage of the city. The 16th annual meeting of the IEEE German EMC Chapter took place in November 2009 in Frankfurt. Members from universities and industries were welcomed by the Chapter Chair, Frank Sabath. He described the member situation of the Chapter and was glad to announce the rising number of graduate student members. Every year outstanding Ph.D. and Master thesis awards are presented during the Chapter meeting. This year the award for the best Ph.D. thesis was presented to Volker Vahrenholt, a former student of Professor Singer. Evgeni Genender, a student of Professor Garbe, received the award for the best Master thesis. It was announced that the IEEE EMC Society presented the 2009 Laurence G. Cumming Award to Frank Sabath for outstanding service and leadership as Chairman of the IEEE German EMC Chapter, service as Global and Regional Conference Coordinator, and contribution to the overall success of the IEEE EMC Society. An important activity of the Chapter in 2009 was the survey on EMC education. The survey was conducted by Professor Dickmann, the chair of the working group on EMC education. Within the framework of this survey, questionnaires were mailed to German universities and other educational facilities that teach EMC courses. The questionnaires asked about the topics that are taught during the EMC lecture or which literature is recommended by the teachers. As expected, the most frequently taught topics involve coupling mechanisms. Based on this survey, it is planned to create a framework that will help new professors in EMC to prepare a plan for their lectures. This action can be seen in the framework of the ongoing enhancement initiated by the EMC Society to ensure high quality EMC education worldwide.

Hong Kong
The IEEE Hong Kong EMC Chapter held two successful events on 13 November 2009 and 5 December 2009. The first event took place at the Hong Kong Science Park. Mr. Wai Leong, EMC consultant, presented, “Training Series on Essential Knowledge of Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC): Theory, Testing, Regulation, and Design Considerations.” A total of 72 participants attended this excellent presentation. The second event was a technical seminar held at the City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Duncan Fung of the Hong Kong Productivity Council spoke on, “Human Safety Issues on EM Radiations of Mobile Communication Devices: Regulations and Standards.” Dr. Brian Chan of City University of Hong Kong then presented, “Specific Absorption Rate Evaluation Methods of Wireless Communication Devices.” Finally, Mr. Timm Schernau of TUV Rheinland Hong Kong presented, “Safety Requirements on Lithium Batteries Used in Mobile Phones.” A total of 76 participants attended this seminar.

Mr. Wai Leung presents “Training Series on Essential Knowledge of Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) – Theory, Testing, Regulation, and Design Considerations” to the Hong Kong Chapter.	Dr. Duncan Fung speaks to the Hong Kong Chapter regarding “Human Safety Issues on EM Radiations of Mobile Communication Device: Regulations and Standards.”
Dr. Brian Chan presented to the Hong Kong Chapter on “Specific Absorption Rate Evaluation Methods of Wireless Communication Devices.”	A presentation entitled, “Safety Requirements on Lithium Batteries Used in Mobile Phones” was given to the Hong Kong Chapter by Mr. Timm Schernau of TUV Rheinland.
The speakers and the committee members of the Hong Kong EMC and PSE Chapters are shown in a group photo after the December 5 seminar. Pictured from left to right are David Chung, Wai Leong, Kevin Leung, S. L. Mak, Dr. Patrick Wong (chairman of the Hong Kong EMC Chapter), Dr. Peter Leung, Dr. Brian Chan, Dr. Duncan Fung, Timm Schernau, K. W. Chen, Horace Lau, Wilson Loke, Wing Leung, Jeffrey Tsang, and Steven Tsang.

Huntsville
Jeff Whitmire reports that the Huntsville Chapter of the IEEE EMC Society wrapped up their 2009 schedule with a business meeting in October and a meeting in November held in conjunction with the EMC Society Board of Directors meeting in Huntsville. The November meeting drew record attendance. The Chapter also elected new officers for 2010 and began the planning process for their 2010 one-day event. The Chapter meeting on October 15 was held at ADTRAN with 18 in attendance. Doug Parker, Chapter Chair, led the meeting. We reviewed the general business for 2009. The monthly meeting schedule was set for 2010 and a team was established to organize the 2010 one-day event. The November 12 meeting was held at ADTRAN’s Mark C. Smith Conference Center. This was a joint meeting with the local IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems (AES) Society Chapter. A presentation was given by IEEE EMC Society President Elya Joffe who was in town for the EMC Society Board of Director’s meeting. A meal was catered for the event and was provided by the local Chapter

Doug Parker led the October Huntsville meeting. Many thanks to all who attended the annual business planning meeting. 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for the Huntsville Chapter!	Ron Ogan gave the opening remarks at the November Huntsville EMC Chapter meeting on behalf of the AES Society. The November meeting was held as a joint technical meeting to support the local AESS Chapter.
Elya Joffe presented his talk, “Who’s Afraid of Maxwell’s Equations” to the Huntsville EMC Chapter in November. It turns out that to find the answer to this question, all you have to do is look into a mirror.	The November meeting for the Huntsville EMC Chapter had almost 150 people in attendance! Many thanks to the EMC Board of Directors for holding their annual meeting in Huntsville and supporting this Chapter meeting.
Several members of the EMC Society Board of Directors attended the Huntsville EMC Chapter November meeting. Seated from left to right are John Norgard, Don Heirman, Francesa Maradei, Janet O’Neil and Todd Hubing.	Doug Parker (left) presented Elya Joffe with a certificate of appreciation and an official NASA space pen after his presentation. Now he can work on his next book, even while lying in bed.

and the IEEE EMC Society Board. The presentation drew record attendance with a total of 135 from across many of the IEEE Societies within the Section. The Huntsville Chapter is grateful to the EMC Society Board members who took time out of their busy schedules to attend the meeting. To help promote the IEEE and encourage membership, a desktop display provided information to all those attending the meeting. The meeting started off with some general business. The meeting schedule and list of meal sponsors was announced for 2010. The announcement of the 2010 officers was made. As part of the business meeting, the Chapter was introduced to the new officers voted in for 2010. The new officers are: Chair Jack McFadden (Wyle), Vice-Chair Lon Brolliar (Phase IV), Treasurer Tom Perry (Jacobs/Sverdrup), Secretary Jeff Whitmire (ADTRAN), Member At Large David Cavanaugh (Benchmark), Member At Large Vaughan Carlson (Value Eng). Congratulations the new officers who agreed to step forward and serve this year. Three of the new officers have not served in leadership positions with the Chapter before this term. It is really exciting to develop new leadership from within the Chapter! The Chapter also extends their gratitude to the outgoing 2009 officers: Chair Doug Parker (ADTRAN), Vice-Chair Jeff Whitmire (ADTRAN), Treasurer Jim Stone (UL), Secretary Jack McFadden (Wyle), Member at Large Paul Stover (ADTRAN) and Member at Large Hansel Cornutt (retired). The Huntsville Chapter is also very thankful for their meeting meal sponsors. Their support is part of the total success for the Chapter. Doug

During his most recent trip to the United States, Elya Joffe appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show to promote his latest book on Maxwell’s Equations. He also spoke to the Huntsville EMC Chapter about his new book.

Parker presented the enlightening and entertaining introduction to the speaker, Mr. Elya Joffe. Many had not realized that Mr. Joffe was so well acquainted with Mr. Maxwell and that his new book had reached such international recognition. After graciously acknowledging the introduction, Mr. Joffe presented, “Who’s Afraid of Maxwell’s Equations? A Practical Approach.” The presentation was very informative and well received. Despite flying from Israel earlier in the day, Mr. Joffe was able to inject excitement into the presentation and involve the audience. He was able to effectively dispel some of the mysticism that surrounds the basis of electromagnetic theory. The explanations were presented in ways that practicing (and retired) engineers in the audience obtained a new perspective on some parts of the theory. He held the audience to the end as he completed his journey through the material. There was much lively interaction with the audience after the presentation with many comments and questions. Many thanks go to Mr. Joffe for providing this presentation to the Huntsville Chapter. It is not certain whether or not he keeps an a little pink battery powered bunny in his pocket or what, but between the travel, Board meetings and presentation, his energy level never seemed to change. It has been an exciting 2009 and we look forward to the events planned for 2010! To see everything going on with the Huntsville Chapter, check out our website at http://ewh.ieee.org/r3/huntsville/emc/.

Malaysia
The Malaysia Joint AP/MTT/EMC Chapter was very active from October to December 2009, despite the current economy slowdown and H1N1 outbreak. The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Antennas, Propagation and Systems (INAS 2009) took place on December 3–5 at the Grand Paragon Hotel, Johor Bahru, Johor. The event included plenary sessions, invited papers, parallel technical sessions, a vendor exhibition and a conference banquet. The Dean, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) officiated at the conference. IEEE AP Society President, Professor Makoto Ando from Japan, delivered the Presidential Address. Best Paper and Best Student Paper Awards were presented during the banquet. Over 180 regular papers were received and reviewed, however, over 100 papers from 20 countries, including Malaysia, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, German, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Sudan, Spain, Taiwan, and Thailand, were presented. In addition, three keynote papers and 15 invited papers were also presented. INAS 2009 received Technical Sponsorship from the IEEE AP Society and Full Sponsorship (without financial commitment) from the IEEE MTT Society. The latter being the first received by the Chapter. All IEEE paper presenters who were also AP-S, MTT-S or EMC-S members were given a certificate of appreciation signed by Professor Ando and the Chapter chair. Three keynote speakers (IEEE Fellows) delivered stimulating presentations during the plenary sessions. These presentations included, “Planar Waveguide Array Antennas for Millimeter Wave,” by Professor Ando of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan; “Electromagnetic Theory in Planar Layered Media: From Maxwell Equations via Sommerfeld Integrals to Exact Solutions,” by Professor Joshua Le-Wei Li of the National University of Singapore; and “Radio-Frequency Applications for Nanotechnology, Nano-antenna and Nano-waveguides,” by Professor Er Ping Li of A*STAR Singapore. Professor Li is also an EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer. The Chapter is indeed very grateful to the keynote speakers and those who presented invited papers. The countries of Malaysia, China, Thailand, Singapore, Korea, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Sudan were all represented by the invited paper speakers. The conference dinner and official opening ceremony took place on the second day of INAS 2009. Best Paper and Best Student Paper Awards were presented. The papers were selected by the IEEE Fellows. The first three award recipients received award certificates and plaques, while the consolation award recipients received award certificates. The three INAS 2009 Best Paper Award recipients were as follows: First Prize, Best Paper Diamond Award: N. Seman et. al., “Multi-port Reflectometers Formed by UWB Microstrip-Slot Couplers and Dividers”, Malaysia and Australia. Second Prize, Best Paper Ruby Award: M. H. Badjian et. al., “On the Design of an UWB Patch Antenna with Integrated BPF”, Malaysia. Third Prize, Best Paper Emerald Award: Suwadi et. al., “Performance Enhancement of LMDS Systems Using Adaptive Coded Modulation and SC Diversity Under the Impact of Rain Attenuation in Indonesia”, Indonesia. The consolation prizes are as follows: Best Paper, Pearl Award: K. Narendra et. al., “Design Methodology of High Power Distributed Amplifier Employing Broadband Impedance Transformer”, and N. M. Abdul Latiff et. al., “Low Energy Clustering for Mobile Sensor Network Using Particle Swarm Optimization”. The three INAS 2009 Best Student Paper Award recipients were as follows: First Prize, Best Student Paper Platinum Award: M. Kumar et. al., “A Novel Scheme for Generating and Transmitting UWB Signals”, India. Second Prize, Best Student Paper Gold Award: N. N. N. Abd. Malik et. al., “Adaptive Array Pattern Synthesis Using Particle Swarm Method”, Malaysia. Third Prize Best Student Paper Silver Award: R. Gani et. al., “Reconfigurable MMIC Power Amplifier Using Discrete Interstage Matching Network”, Malaysia. In addition, the consolation prizes were as follows: Best Student Paper Bronze Award: M. N. Abd. Karim et. al., “Analysis of Second Iteration Fractal Koch Antenna for Wireless Application” and N. Mhudtongon et. al., “Dual-Band Microstrip Bandpass Filter”. The conference offered four complimentary tutorials, held on December 3. “Connectors and Connector Care” was presented by Fadeli Hizam Shamsuddin from Rohnert, Malaysia. “Principle and Applications of Substrate Integrated Waveguide” was given by Professor Dr. Wei Hong from Southeast University China. “Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Design” was presented by Associate Professor Grant Ellis from the University Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia. And, “Rasch Analysis: A Practical Approach to Measure Learning Outcomes,” was presented by Mohd Saifudin Mas’odi from Petrovest, Malaysia. In conjunction with INAS 2009, an industrial exhibition was held by Comrel Technologies. The Malaysia Chapter also ran a membership booth, in cooperation with the IEEE UTM Student Branch. A Chapter meeting with a technical presentation, “Cognitive Radio Systems,” by Associate Professor Dr. Sadough from Beheshti University (Iran) was held on October 20. The talk was well received by those in attendance. The Chapter Chair tabled the intention for Malaysia to host the International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (ISAP) in 2015, during the International Steering Committee (ISC) ISAP meeting at ISAP 2009 held October 21–24 in Bangkok, Thailand. R10 APS CCM was also held during ISAP 2009, which was attended by the Chapter Chair. At ISAP 2009, a student paper from Malaysia won Third Place, Best Student Paper Award, “Reduced Size Microwave Fractal Meander Dipole Antenna with Reconfigurable Feature,” by S. A. Hamzah et. al., from UTM. The Chapter Chair also attended the ISC meeting of the Asia Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC) during APMC 2009 held December 7–10 in Singapore, as well as R10 MTTS CCM. The 2009 Presidents of the MTT-S and AP-S, Dr. Barry and Professor M. Ando, were present, as well as the 2009 President-Elect of the MTT-S, Professor Samir. Several Chapter members attended and presented papers at the conferences. The Chapter plans to carry out more activities in 2010. First will be a series of Chapter conferences. The IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Applied Electromagnetics (APACE 2010) is planned for November 9–11 in Port Dickson. Another event planned for 2010 is the Indonesia-Malaysia Microwave-Antennas Conference (IMMAC 2010), which will be held in June at the University of Indonesia. The conference is the first event of its type for the IEEE MTT/AP Indonesia Chapter. The event will focus on postgraduate papers and final year undergraduate poster papers, and will benefit the Chapter members of both countries, including WIE members and students. Detailed activities organized in 2009 are available in the Annual Report 2009.

Philadelphia
Graham Kilshaw, Chapter Chair, reports that the December Philadelphia Chapter meeting had an attendance of 57 people. This was a record to date for this newly rejuvenated Chapter. Tom Mullineaux of Milmega UK gave an inspiring presentation on “Demystifying RF!” The meetings planned for 2010 are provisionally scheduled as follows: Tuesday, February 2 or Tuesday, February 9, CISPR 16; Tuesday, April 6 or Tuesday, April 13, Mil 461 F/CE101; and May 21, Social Night. For confirmation of dates, locations and to sign up for email notifications, please email Larry Lederer at Imagitron.lederer@comcast.net

Phoenix
Glen Gassaway reports that the final IEEE EMC Phoenix Chapter meeting of 2009 was held on Monday, November 16 at Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant in Tempe, AZ. The meeting began with the customary social hour starting at 5:30 pm, with dinner at 6:00 pm. There was excellent attendance, completely filling the meeting room. Harry Gaul mentioned that the Chapter would be open to inviting vendors to present a 5–10 minute sales pitch for their products at the Chapter’s meetings, provided that they pay for the food and drinks! At that point they proceeded with the annual officer elections. The membership unanimously agreed to keep the officers the same: Harry Gaul as Chairman; Daryl Gerke as Vice Chairman; Glen Gassaway as Secretary and Jim Dykema as Treasurer. Then, the customary round table introductions and the call for EMC employment/employers took place. The featured speaker for the evening was Bill Kimmel from Kimmel-Gerke Consultants with a

PHOTO BY STEVE GERARD

Bill Kimmel (far right) of Kimmel-Gerke Associates points out to the Phoenix Chapter that ESD is a major problem for keypads.

presentation entitled: “ESD as an EMI Problem”. He talked about situations where ESD becomes a problem, mentioning that the EU and Pacific Rim are largely maritime climates and have fewer issues with ESD than North America, where industrialized areas are often located in very dry climates. He mentioned that the primary cause of ESD failure is excess voltage between signal and ground pins on chips, causing ground bounce. It is important to divert ESD currents away from chips through shielding and filtering. It is also important to realize that ESD can follow two paths: direct or indirect discharge. Bill then presented the “Ten Keys to ESD Control”, including avoiding static buildup, preventing the discharge from occurring, the use of multi-layer boards, filtering critical lines, filtering critical circuits, internal wire routing, use of metal connector back shells, omitting pigtails as shield terminations, using the right shielding material and error correction in software. Bill’s presentation was chock-full of excellent design hints! The Chapter is very grateful to Bill for a very enlightening presentation.

Romania
On November 19, 2009, the IEEE EMC Romania Chapter, in cooperation with the “POLITEHNICA” University of Bucharest, Romanian EMC Association (ACER) and the Romanian Academy for Technical Sciences, organized a special event in coordination with a visit by EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Dr. Alistair Duffy. The half day meeting took place at the “POLITEHNICA” University of Bucharest with 32 attendees from universities, research institutes, test laboratories, regulatory-standardization bodies and industry. Dr. Duffy, Reader in Electromagnetics and Head of the Engineering Division at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, gave the lectures “Reverberation Chambers” and “Validation of Computational Electromagnetics”. His first talk was a good overview of the history, operation, advantages and limits of reverberation chambers. The second presentation, held after a coffee break, pointed out the problems of computer implementable methods for the assessment of the features (quality, propriety) of tests results, when EMC engineers are faced with graphs containing many peaks and troughs and differing amplitude levels. After each presentation, and during breaks, the attendees had the opportunity for discussion on these presentations. Finally, as recognition of Dr. Alistair Duffy’s merits in the field of EMC, the President of the Romanian EMC Association, Dr. Andrei Marines, offered him the Honorary Member’s Diploma with Professor Sorin Coatu, Romania EMC Chapter Chair. Special thanks go to Dr. Duffy for his interesting presentation and to the IEEE EMC Society for sponsoring the DL program.

The opening of the meeting in the Senate Hall of the “POLITEHNICA” University of Bucharest. From left, Professor Sorin Coatu, Romania EMC Chapter Chair, Dr. Alistair Duffy, IEEE EMC Society DL, Professor Mihai Popescu, Prorector of the University and Professor Andrei Marinescu, President of the Romanian EMC Association.
Dr. Alistair Duffy speaks about reverberation chambers to members of the Romania Chapter.	At the end of the Romania Chapter meeting, IEEE EMC Society DL, Dr. Alistair Duffy, receives the Diploma as Honorary Member of the Romanian EMC Association from its President, Professor Andrei Marinescu (right).

Santa Clara
On January 12, the Santa Clara Chapter welcomed Bob Carter of Oak-Mitsui Technologies as their guest speaker. Mr. Carter’s presentation was titled, “Ultra-Thin Embedded Capacitance Laminates and How They Improve the PDN and Can Impact EMC.” During his presentation, he touched on typical/traditional PDN design, the PDN which utilizes embedded capacitance, some causes of resonance and EMC problems in PCBs, ultra-thin laminates for embedded capacitance that can help reduce EMC problems, and some practical case studies to demonstrate these points. Bob Carter obtained a BS Degree in Chemical & Materials Engineering and Business Management at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, California and Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, Arizona. He has over 27 years professional experience in the printed circuit, advanced electronic materials, and chip packaging industries. He spent extensive time supporting engineering, marketing, and sales worldwide. He initiated the start-up of two PCB factories in Shenzhen and Suzhou, China. He led design, engineering, development, and applications organizations at companies such as Xerox, Toppan, Multi-Fineline Electronix (M-Flex), Rogers Corporation, Flex2Chip Inc. (Tessera), Matsushita/Panasonic Electronic Materials, and Oak-Mitsui Technologies. Currently Bob is a Senior Technology Executive supporting Oak-Mitsui and FaradFlex Embedded Capacitance materials. He is actively involved in technology leadership committees in the IPC, IEC, and IEEE. On Tuesday, November 10, 2009, the Chapter gathered to hear an excellent presentation by Orin Laney, an independent consultant based in Santa Clara, CA. Mr. Laney’s presentation focused on “Magnetic Devices for EMC, SI, and Other Things.” Mr. Laney discussed that coils, chokes, inductors, transformers, baluns, and beads are workhorse components for EMC and SI work. Many see them as little black boxes that can magically solve certain problems, though they might offer no relief whatsoever if misapplied. As one of the few components that engineers routinely custom design – if they know how – understanding magnetic devices is a powerful advantage in our field. Orin reviewed the basic principles and equations of magnetic circuits, discussed representative devices, showed working examples, and offered some interesting case histories. Orin Laney bought his first coil winding machine as a teenager. Since then he has worked on coils so large that the wire had to be pounded with a mallet to conform it to the coil form to ones so small that an eight Henry choke is comparable to the eraser of a pencil. He has extensive experience with RF processing and instrumentation, cabling design, grounding and shielding, and design for SI performance and EMC compliance. Mr. Laney earned his BSEE at the University of Maryland, his MBA at Brigham Young University, is a NARTE certified EMC engineer and a California licensed PE. Among other topics, he teaches a public course in magnetics design through seminar provider Besser Associates and is authoring a book on high frequency magnetic components. Last year, the Chapter held a two day workshop on October 15–16 at the Hilton Hotel in Santa Clara. The speaker was the popular Bruce Archambeault, an IBM Distinguished Engineer at IBM in Research Triangle Park, NC. Dr. Archambeault is currently the IEEE EMC Society Technical Advisory Committee Chair, a past member of the Board of Directors for the IEEE EMC Society and a past member of the Board of Directors for the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES). He has served as an IEEE EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer and is the author of the book “PCB Design for Real-World EMI Control” and the lead author of the book titled, “EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook.” With this considerable expertise, it’s no wonder over 80 people attended the workshop and 20 exhibitors participated with tabletop displays. The two day workshop covered such important topics as: Introduction to General SI/EMC – What is Inductance?; The Ground Myth – Where Does the Current Flow?; Pseudo-Differential Nets; Return Current Spread; I/O Filter Design; Power Integrity and Decoupling Power/Ground Planes; Mixed Mode PCB Design; Shielding; SI and EMC Issues for High Speed Differential Cables; Using Signal Integrity Tools for EMC Design; and Other Software Tools for EMC Design. This was the first time the Chapter has held a “tabletop show” in over a decade, and, judging by the enthusiastic support of the attendees and exhibitors, will be held much sooner in the future! The Chapter wishes to thank the speaker, Bruce Archambeault, for the excellent presentations as well as the organizers of the workshop including Oscar MahinFallah of Cisco Systems, Caroline Chan and Ken Renda of Lockheed Martin Company, Jerry Ramie of ARC Technical Resources, Janet O’Neil of ETS-Lindgren and Min Hua (Consultant) for their efforts in putting on a first class technical program and exhibition. To keep up with the Santa Clara Valley EMC Chapter, visit the website www.scvemc.org

Speaker Bruce Archambeault of IBM visited with Teresa Nguyen of Cisco Systems in the exhibit area at the Santa Clara Valley’s EMC Workshop in October.	IEEE EMC Society Board Member Janet O’Neil (left) and Santa Clara Valley Chapter Chair Oscar MahinFallah (center) are pictured with raffle winner Geoff Day.
Santa Clara Valley committee members toast to the success of their one-day EMC workshop in October. From left are Caroline Chen of Lockheed Martin, EMC consultant Min Hua, Jerry Ramie of ARC Technical Resources, Oscar MahinFallah of Cisco Systems and Ken Renda of Lockheed Martin.	Vendor booths were an important part of the success of Santa Clara’s October EMC Workshop, providing attendees with much useful information on EMC products and services. Shown are Tim Gearhart (left) of Hisco and Jon Borchardt of 3M.
Photograph by Jerry Ramie
Speaker Bruce Archambeault is shown with a gathering of EMC practitioners from Apple who attended the two-day workshop sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Chapter.	Orin Laney covered the basic principles behind magnetic circuitry with the Santa Clara Chapter in November.
	Photograph by Jerry Ramie
Caroline Chen (seated center) of Lockheed is seen with her Lockheed colleagues at the Santa Clara workshop. Caroline worked hard behind the scenes to organize the great event.	Bob Carter of Oak-Mitsui Technologies covered the uses of “Ultra-Thin Embedded Capacitance Laminates” with the Santa Clara Valley Chapter in January.

Seattle
The IEEE Seattle Section hosted a two day workshop on wireless communication technologies and applications at the Hilton Hotel in Bellevue, Washington. Some 130 people attended the workshop held on October 30–31. The Seattle EMC Chapter helped with the organization of this unique event. Other Societies actively involved represented the local Microwave Theory and Techniques, Communication, Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and Computer Chapters. In all, there were eight 90-minute coordinated technical society presentations with plenty of food, beverages and networking opportunities. The goal of the workshop was to address the following questions related to wireless technologies: – What is it? – How does it work? – How do you make it secure? – What are the applications? – Where do I learn more? The technical program sessions included: 1. Modern Wireless Systems and Networks: An overview by Sumit Roy; 2. Mobile Broadband – Entering the 4G Decade by Peter Rysavy; 3. Key Technologies in 4G by Titus Lo Wireless; 4. Sensor Networks by Scott Cherry, Raju Pandey and Kevin Egan; 5. Wireless Local Area Networks by Richard Paine; 6. Wireless Medical Applications by Jim Ryan and Robert Hughes; 7. An Overview of RFID Technology and Applications by Pavel Nitikin and Kambiz Rahimi; and 8. Wireless Personal Area Networks: Bluetooth, UWB and 60 GHz by Joe Decuir. A tabletop display exhibition was held on Friday, October 30 in the ballroom adjacent to the technical presentation room. Continental breakfast, morning and afternoon breaks, and the happy hour reception with the speakers were located in the tabletop display area to promote networking among the attendees. The Seattle EMC Chapter was proud to be a part of this very successful event! Kudos to Joe Decuir, Dick Wilkins, and Erik Godo for their efforts in making this an outstanding technical benefit to the members of the IEEE Seattle Section.

PhotoS by Pat Andre
Exhibitors prepare their tabletop displays in the “networking area” adjacent to the technical presentation room at the IEEE Seattle Section Wireless Workshop.
Over 130 people from the greater Seattle area attended the two day Wireless Workshop on October 30–31 to hear about the latest developments in this rapidly developing technology.	Seattle EMC Chapter members Mark Chase (left) and Leo Smale of Lionheart Northwest enjoy networking during a break in the technical program.
The Wireless Workshop attendees worked up quite an appetite with all that technical information to devour from eight 90 minute presentations. Fortunately, two groaning buffets served a very filling lunch!	After a long day staffing his 3M tabletop display, Toni Gurga turned into “EMI Man” much to the delight of Sarah Ditlevson of Agilent Technologies. Maybe he was getting ready for Halloween which happened to be day two of the Wireless Workshop?

Singapore
Richard Gao Xianke, Chapter Secretary, reports that the Singapore Chapter held an administrative meeting on 07 October 2009. Dr. Liu Enxiao, Chapter Chair, hosted the meeting and summarized the achievements of the Chapter in 2009. He also presented the Chapter’s operational guidelines to the committee members. Dr. Richard Gao Xianke, Secretary, and Dr. Chua Eng Kee, Treasurer, respectively gave Chapter activity and financial reports of 2009 to the committee. The committee passionately discussed the 2010 work plan, which includes organizing seminars, Distinguished Lecturer visits, short courses, membership development drive, EMC design/project Student Contest, social activities and forming a joint EMC/PSES Chapter. In order to recruit new blood, the committee has decided to pilot a one-year membership waiver scheme to encourage local university and polytechnic students, and IEEE members to join the EMC Society. A joint EMC-PSES (IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society) Singapore Chapter, which was proposed by EMC Society president Elya Joffe, will be founded in 2010 with the support from all committee members. The new 2010 committee was also nominated at the meeting and subsequently elected at the IEEE Singapore Annual General Meeting. Dr. Richard Gao Xianke, Dr. Deng Junhong, Mr. Khoo Keng Kok and Dr. Chua Eng Kee have been nominated to serve as Chapter Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and Treasurer for 2010, respectively. On the same day, Professor Atef Z. Elsherbeni from the University of Mississippi, USA, gave a speech entitled, “GPU Acceleration of the Finite Difference Techniques for Advanced Applications.” On 17 and 19 November, Professor Jennifer Bernhard from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, delivered two talks entitled, “Multifunctional Reconfigurable Antennas: Current Capabilities and Future Directions” and “Electrically Small Antennas: Examples, Measurement Details, and Implications,” respectively. Four Chapter members, Professor See Kye Yak, Dr. Liu Enxiao, Timonth Foo, and Dr. Richard Gao Xianke attended the IEEE Singapore Section 32nd Annual General Meeting, held at the Rasa Sentosa Resort. The meeting was well attended by over 200 IEEE members. The Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC) 2009, sponsored by the local EMC Chapter and MTT/AP joint Chapter, was successfully held on 7–10 December 2009 in Singapore. It is the biggest technical event in the microwave related area in the Asia Pacific region and more than 1,000 delegates both from local and overseas have actively participated the conference. A social event organized by the Chapter was held in conjunction with the APMC 2009 banquet. The Distinguished Lecture entitled, “Broadband Common-mode Filters Design for GHz Differential Signals Using Defected Ground Structures” was given by Professor Tzong-Lin Wu from National Taiwan University on 11 December. Professor Wu gave an interesting and excellent presentation followed by an ardent discussion during the Q&A session. Several more technical seminars have been held during 7 to 15 December, one of which was an excellent talk delivered by Professor Thomas Weiland from Technische Universitat Darmstadt, Germany on 10 December. Over 20 people attended the seminar. In 2009, the Singapore Chapter organized a total of 26 distinguished lectures/technical seminars. Lastly, the Singapore Chapter congratulates three newly elevated IEEE senior members from the Chapter, Dr. Liu Enxiao, Dr. Wei Xing Chang, and Dr. Richard Gao Xianke.

Professor Atef Z. Elsherbeni from the University of Mississippi, USA, gave a technical presentation at the Institute of High Performance Computing of A*STAR, Singapore, on 07 October 2009.
	Mr. Timothy Foo, Dr. Liu Enxiao and Dr. Richard Gao Xianke (from left) of the Singapore EMC Chapter enjoyed the dinner at the IEEE Singapore Section 32nd Annual General Meeting on 20 November 2009.
	Participants enjoyed taking photos with Professor Thomas after the seminar.
Professor Thomas Weiland, from the Technische Universität Darmstadt Germany, gave a technical presentation at the Institute of High Performance Computing of A*STAR, ­Singapore, on 10 December 2009.		Participants listened attentively at Professor Thomas Wieland’s seminar on 10 December 2009.
Professor Tzong-Lin Wu from the National Taiwan University gave a Distinguished Lecture at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on 11 December 2009.		IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Professor Tzong-Lin Wu appreciated a speaker gift of an IEEE tie with the EMC logo presented by the Singapore EMC Chapter. Shown from left to right are Mr. Timothy Foo, Dr. Eng-Kee Chua, Professor Kye-Yak See, Professor Tzong-Lin Wu, Dr. Richard Gao Xianke and Mr. Keng-Kok Khoo.

South Africa
The Antennas and Propagation, Microwave Theory and Techniques, and Electromagnetic Compatibility (AP/MTT/EMC), IEEE South Africa Section, most recently expanded to include the EMC Society. On November 3, 2009, the University of Cape Town IEEE student branch was proud to host a talk by Mr. Elya Joffe, the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Society President, during his visit to South Africa. He is the V.P. of Engineering and works as a Senior EMC engineering specialist and consultant at K.T.M Project Engineering in Israel. The title of the talk was ‘Current, if not Obstructed, will always Flow in the “Path of Least…”. He discussed the important concept of “Path of Least Impedance” and its relation to EMC principles on grounding. The presentation was attended by an audience of undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as lecturers from the Electrical Engineering department. Mr. Joffe has over 25 years of experience in EMC/E3 (Electromagnetic Compatibility/Electromagnetic Environmental Effects) and has authored, developed and presented many courses on EMC and related topics. He discussed misconceptions of grounding and also highlighted the effect of frequency on return current flow path in electronic circuits. Mr. Joffe engaged the audience by using typical examples and analogies of how water flowing down a hill will take a longer route if this ensures that it is always flowing downhill, and also how hikers will take a longer but easier route climbing a mountain, instead of a shorter but much steeper, thus more difficult, route. He further gave examples of how grounding misconceptions have led to incorrect implementations, such as in electronic circuit boards, often resulting in catastrophic failures. He emphasized that these misconceptions are usually entrenched in the minds of technical and engineering practitioners, making them too difficult to uproot. He discussed an experiment he performed in an effort to uproot a misconception on return current flow path, of which the results were very surprising to his colleagues. Mr. Joffe advised the audience that gaining a thorough understanding of the presented material will help them avoid significant losses and failures in their future design projects as engineering professionals. He indicated that the material is original and will not be found anywhere yet, but will soon be available in a book he is writing. The seminar was one of a series of talks Mr. Joffe was presenting at other South African Universities. He was accompanied by Professor Howard Reader of the University of Stellenbosch, at which he would later give another presentation. The talk was drawn to a close by the Chairperson of the branch, Keoikantse Marungwana, who thanked the speaker for the very informative talk, as well as Professor Reader for his assistance in making the event a success. Elya presented technical lectures at various locations in South Africa, including at three IEEE student branches (in alphabetical order: University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria and University of Witwatersrand) in South Africa. Elya also met with Chapter leaders in Stellenbosch on the evening of 3 November where he described the active character of the IEEE EMC Society. There are many support and educational schemes freely available to members. In particular, interaction between EMC practitioners is promoted with easily-accessible grant schemes. Elya then gave an animated talk on “EMC Grounding Fundamentals” which led to lively discussion at the ensuing social event. The following day, a half-day seminar was held in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Stellenbosch University. The main theme was the EMI mitigation for South Africa’s evolving Square Kilometre Array (SKA) demonstrator. The department’s EMC research group is focusing much of its attention on this work through physical and computational modeling and laboratory and full-scale measurement. The seminar was interactive with grounding, zone-shielding and lightning protection schemes enjoying specific attention.

Elya Joffe (left), 2008–2009 IEEE EMC Society President, is shown during his visit to South Africa with Keoikantse Marungwana, Chair, IEEE Student Branch, of the University of Cape Town.	Elya Joffe (far right) prepares for his presentation to the IEEE Student Branch at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Riana Geschke (left), IEEE AP/MTT/EMC Joint Chapter Chair, and Howard Reader (right), Vice-chair, EMC, visited with Elya Joffe during the social function following Mr. Joffe’s presentation on “EMC Grounding Fundamentals.”	Elya Joffe (left) was welcomed to the University of Pretoria, South Africa by Jean van Niekerk, Coordinator for Technical Activities, IEEE Student Branch.

Spain

Dr. Alistair P. Duffy lectures to the Spanish Chapter in October.

The Spanish Chapter organized its autumn meeting on October 20, 2009 at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) Campus Nord, in Barcelona. A one day workshop entitled, “Electromagnetic Compatibility: New Issues,” was organized by the Chapter. Professor Alistair P. Duffy from De Montfort University, Leicester, UK was invited as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE EMC Society. Several subjects such as, “Validation of Computational Electromagnetics” and “Structured Cabling and Reverberation Chambers,” were presented by Professor Duffy and discussed by those in attendance. The meeting was attended by 18 people, including IEEE EMC Society members, EMC engineers from Spanish companies and Ph.D. students.

United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland

Stuart Charles (far right) of E-Mead Consulting gave a fascinating demonstration examining the effect of the pulse rise time and termination impedance on the voltage and current on a high speed clock line.	David Welsh (far left) of York EMC Services demonstrated how the shielding afforded by an enclosure is highly dependent on the design of the enclosure, especially with regard to any discontinuities which may exist such as seams and ventilation panels.
Tim Williams (far left) of Elmac Services showed how the coupling between a pair of wires is affected by the addition of a screen between the wires and the quality of the screen ground connection.	During his presentation, David Knight of NPL discussed the impact on the emissions of different termination impedances on cables coming from an EUT in a GTEM.
Right from the start, Elya Joffe’s presentation involved many amusing stories.	Following the meeting, along with other members, Chapter Chair Paul Duxbury (right) and EMC Society President Elya Joffe enjoyed a beer together.

During the EMC UK conference and exhibition in October, the UKRI Chapter once again ran a series of practical and computer based demonstration sessions akin to those at the IEEE International Symposium on EMC. Well positioned in the exhibition hall, these informal table-top demonstrations showed a range of EMC concepts and principles, phenomena, effects, measurement methods, modeling approaches and simulation methods. As with previous years, there was a wide range of demonstrations including the time and frequency analysis of voltage and current on a high speed clock line as a function of the pulse rise time and termination impedance, shielding effectiveness analysis of an enclosure and the impact of different source/monitor types, the coupling and screening between wires and the comparison of longitudinal and transverse voltages on wires. In December, we held our AGM and final technical meeting of the year. We were also very pleased that Elya Joffe was able to join us for what was not only his last Chapter Outreach Activity but also his last official event as President of the Society. During our AGM, Elya was able to inform us that two members of the Chapter, Andy Marvin and Alistair Duffy, had recently been elected to serve on the Board of Directors. The members present recorded their congratulations and Chapter Chair, Paul Duxbury, undertook to send congratulations to them. During the afternoon technical meeting, we had four very interesting presentations. First, from Keith Armstrong (Cherry Clough Consultants) who reprised his nominated best paper from the 2009 IEEE International Symposium on EMC in Austin on why increasing immunity test levels is not sufficient for high-reliability and critical equipment. We then heard from Tom Mullineaux (Milmega) on the challenges of achieving field uniformity over 1–6 GHz through the use of single or multiple antennas. Next we had a presentation from David Knight (National Physical Laboratory) which overviewed recent work done by NPL and members of the UK GTEM User Group looking at the effect of EUTs with cables in GTEM cells and methods for improving the repeatability of measurements. The final presentation of the day was from Elya Joffe and during a very interesting and at times amusing talk full of anecdotes, he discussed the discipline of EMC and how it has moved from the ‘garbage of electronics’ to a global intersystem compatibility discipline, encompassing many other fields of engineering. Following his presentation, he gave a brief summary of his time as President of the EMC Society and some of the achievements of the Society over the last two years. After the meeting, and in the festive spirit, we adjourned to a local pub for a time of socialising and networking.                                                                                                   EMC