Fast Prediction for Conducted EMI in Flyback Converters

Jianwei Liu I,2, Yi Wang I,2, Dan Jiang I, Qunsheng Cao l

ICollege of Electronic and Information Engineering,
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China,
2Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Meteorological Observation and Information Processing,
Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China,
Email: [email protected]
Abstract - The flyback switched mode power supply often recompose the converter to improve the EMC behaviour
fails in electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) because of the easily before the product is sent into fabrication. Compared with
aroused conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI). However,
the measurement of conducted EMI during initial compliance other methods, our method is both time saving and more
tests requires strict test environments and expensive facilities, beneficial, especially for engineering applications.
this makes the prediction of EMI important. This paper presents
a time domain simulation method to predict the conducted EMI
of a flyback converter before prototyping. The CST PCB Studio II. EMI IN FLYBACK CONVERTER
is utilized to extract parasitic parameters of a printed circuit
board (PCB) based on 2D field solver and perform total circuit
The conducted EMI of a flyback converter is the noise
simulation. Experimental results validate that the presented current comes through power lines from the converter to the
modeling method is efficient and fast to predict EMI. power grid. Usually the conducted EMI can be divided into
Index Terms -EMC, EMI, Electromagnetic conductive two parts, common mode (CM) and differential mode (DM).
interference, AC-DC power conversion, Prediction methods. A line impendence stabilization network (LISN) can separate
conducted EMI from the power line for measurement as
I. INTRODUCTION shown in Fig. 1.

Currently, switching power supply is widely used in many

fields such as telecommunications, military equipment ,
transport facilities, etc. Because the switching speed of
electronic devices increase rapidly, electromagnetic
interference (EMI) of switched mode power supply (SMPS)
becomes a big problem that must be taken into account in
order to meet the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)
standards [1].
According to definition, EMI includes radiation and
conduction. Conduction is the first prerequisite for solving Fig. 1. The route of eM and DM noise current
radiation problem. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the
conducted EMI using an accurate model at the design stage. In The CM and DM noise currents come through the LISN
recent years, many EMI prediction methods have been form the noise voltage VL and VN on the son resistances. Cp
proposed, most of them are based on time domain simulations represents the total of parasitic capacitance between the
for specific systems such as passive components, active converter and the ground including MOSFET and heat sink's
devices or PCB pattern [2]-[3]. A frequency-domain EMI parasitic capacitance which can be calculated by a formula is
noise prediction method was proposed to solve DC-AC shown in [5], CI represents the output line's parasitic
converters with variable operating conditions [4]. In these capacitance. The CM and DM noise voltage are defined as
methods, usually more than two softwares were used to following:
simulate the parasitic parameters of PCB through co-
simulation [5]. This paper focuses on developing a series of VCM = (VL + VN )/2 (1)
conducted EMI modeling and analyzing methods that can be
used to quickly and efficiently predict conducted EMI noise. VDM = (VL - VN )/2 (2)
Because direct EMC tests cost a lot of time and resource,
we apply time domain simulations to forecast the conducted where VL and VN are line and neutral EMI voltage. These two
EMI in flyback converters. The CST PCB Studio is used in signals should be fed into a spectrum analyzer or a digital
this work as it can extract parasitic PCB and perform total storage oscilloscope and thus VCM and VnM are calculated by
circuit simulation [6]. Based on the simulation results, we Eqs. (1) and (2).

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247
 III. MODELING AND SIMULATION A 2D TL Modeling tool is used to calculate distributed
parameter of the PCB which is designed using ProteI and then
In order to find an effective and economic way to control
exported to CST PCB Studio, as shown in Fig. 3. In this figure,
EMI in power electronics systems before fabrication, circuits
the brown area is ground plane in the bottom layer, the line
should be modeled. Active and passive components and also
with different widths is the top layer, other auxiliary circuit is
PCB traces affecting EMI are investigated in this section.
ignored.
A. Active and Passive Components Model USN

As stated in the previous section, active components such as

switch and diode are main noise sources in a converter.
Therefore, an exact active component model to predict
accurate ringing frequency, amplitude, over shoot and
transient response is needed. The high frequency models of
active components, such as a MOSFET and Diode, adopt O.1ohm

SPICE macro-model methods, as shown in Fig. 4. All

parameters of these active components are provided by their
manufacturers to ensure the dynamic performance of the
model is satisfied [6].
1 SPICE 2 D4 2
P BYV26C

i~

:~
:3"
Clamp:
snubber:

Fig. 4. Conducted EMI model of the flyback converter for

Fig. 2. The circuit model of transformer simulation. The Sl and S2 mean source 1 and source 2 respectively.
The Port 1-4 represent the four port numbers of transformer.
The equivalent series inductance (ESL) and resistance (ESR)
of input and output capacitance should be taken into
3.5
consideration. Usually a transformer has leakage inductance,
distributed capacitance (coupling capacitances) and winding 3.0
resistance [2], as shown in Fig. 2. The transformer and other
2.5
passive components are modeled using parameters measured
~
by the Agilent 4294A impedance analyzer. For example, the a:> 2.0
input capacitor parameters are 0.07.0 ESR, 12.7nH ESL and
'"0
~
200uF Capacitance. The output capacitor and transformer a. 1.5
E
parameters are shown in Fig. 4.
~
1.0

B. PCB Model 0.5

In this part, numerical method is adopted to accurately

predict the behaviour of the circuit. The Transmission Line
(TL) Modeling is a 2D field approach based on the Boundary 29.90 29.92 29.94 29.96 29.98 30.00
Elements Method (BEM), a special form of the Method of Time(ms)
Moments (MoM). This method is used to extract PCB circuit
Fig. 5. The simulated primary and secondary current waves of
model [5]. transformer

The whole system model is completed with the active and

passive component models and the PCB model. Figure 4
shows a 20W flyback converter model for the conducted EMI
simulation in CST PCB Studio. Source 1 works at 50Hz and
its peak to peak voltage is 311V to play the same role like
household 220V AC. The amplitude of Source 2 is set as 15V
to control the states of the MOSFET turned on fully. The
switch is 2SK2225 and the diode is BYV26C. In order to
Fig. 3. Imported PCB model in CST PCB Studio achieve a flyback topology, the secondary output of the

248
transformer is reversed and then connected to the output is no heat sink, the conducted EMI level is lower. Also, this
circuit. The clamp snubber in the transformer primary side simulation method described above is used to validate that the
reduces the effects of the leakage inductance and increases the PCB trace, as well as leakage inductance, distributed
reliability of the power supply. The voltage of PI probe minus capacitance of the transformer, and the parasitic capacitance
that of P2 probe is the output voltage. Simulation time is set as Cp of MOSFET and heat sink is one of the main reasons to
30ms. The primary and secondary current of transformer in generate the high frequency EMI peak and its harmonics [5].
the converter is shown in Fig. 5, which ensures the correctness Usually one would like to reduce the EMI levels to fall below
of the simulated circuit in Continuous Current Mode (CCM). the standards. To do that an additional EMI filters can be
added [7].
IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
V. CONCLUSION
After the whole converter model is built, CST PCB Studio
is used to simulate conducted noise voltages VL and VN in A conducted prediction method for a flyback converter is
flyback converter. Simulation time is set as 2ms. Figure 6 proposed in this paper. The series of conducted EMI modeling
shows the frequency spectrum of noise voltage VL from the and analysis methods help to predict the frequency peaks of
converter. Y-axis shows magnitude of conducted EMI in conducted EMI using CST PCB Studio. To effectively
dBuV. X-axis is frequency from 10kHz to 10MHz in linear simulate conducted EMI in SMPS, high frequency component
scale unit. models are developed and PCB circuit model is extracted
101J-T------------------------, using 2D TL Modeling tool. The EMI measurement results
using LISNs shows that the method accurately predicts the
high frequency peaks of EMI spectrum. The method can be
extended to predict the EMI behavior of other microwave
devices before fabrication.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported by National Science
Foundation of China under grant 61172024 and the
Open Research Program in Jiangsu Key Laboratory of
Meteorological Observation and Information Processing
under grant KDXS1202.

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