“The training and securing of EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility)/EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) experts is key to national industrial development. In the future, the digital environment of industries and daily life, including automobiles and electronic products, will rapidly change, and EMI problems are expected to become more serious. In order to prevent this and solve problems when they occur, securing EMI experts is essential. However, EMI experts cannot be trained in the short term and require long-term investment. Therefore, the government and the entire industry need to make various investments starting now to secure and train EMI experts.”


Professor Kim Ji-seong of Suwon Science University's Department of Electronics, who recently conducted an interview with our newspaper, argued that experienced professionals are needed to prepare for EMI problems that will become more complex and rapidly increase in the future.

Professor Kim Ji-seong said that EMI is very difficult to identify because it is caused by various invisible factors, and in the case of electronic products, many semiconductor chips are used, and in terms of EMI, no matter how well the chip is made, if the PCB board on which the chip is mounted is poorly designed, high-frequency noise unrelated to operation is generated, so the design of the PCB board is very important. He also mentioned that the design of signal transmission lines, including connectors and cables, as well as electronic product boards, is important and can affect the product.

In particular, in the case of product failure due to EMI, there are various environments in which it is difficult to evaluate just one component, and in a complete system, the environment in which each component operates changes into a completely different environment, so product units such as △noise generation source △countermeasure design △path blocking △shielding are certified, he said.

In order to reduce EMI most effectively and efficiently, it is necessary to consider noise in the design phase, and a design guide based on theory is necessary, and countermeasure technologies such as noise source identification, filtering, and noise path blocking through simulation analysis and measurement are necessary.

Despite these efforts, each product may exhibit different phenomena depending on the product model, and problems such as noise interference may occur differently depending on the environment in which the product is used. Therefore, EMI design at the component and module level is important, but cause analysis should be conducted by considering the overall operating environment of the system.

Accordingly, the government and domestic industries have established electromagnetic wave testing facilities in each region for EMI certification or debugging, and have established an environment for certification testing, but it is true that consulting services to resolve this are not easy, it said.

The story is that while test environments can identify EMI problems, there is a lack of experts to address them.

Accordingly, the government matches experts through projects such as the Technology Doctor program, and provides support using a human resource pool through projects such as the Radio Promotion Association's electromagnetic wave countermeasure technology support program, but it was mentioned that many companies are not aware of it, so a lot of publicity and support is needed.

In particular, there are not many experts with EMI knowledge in the country. He said that because it is not possible to gain relevant know-how by taking short-term classes at a university, it is necessary to accumulate considerable experience in the field for things such as design or debugging solutions.

The demand for EMI-related experts is expected to increase in the future.

Professor Kim Ji-seong predicted that as times change, cars will become more electrified, and their image will change from machines in the past to electronic products, and that as communication frequencies such as 5G increase, electromagnetic wave problems will become more serious.

In particular, with the introduction of sensors and AI technology, industrial products are becoming more complex. In the past, when you pressed the window switch for a car, the motor would just turn and the window would go down, but now that we have entered an era where buttons communicate via networks, an environment has been created where noise from computers can cause them to malfunction. In addition, since the brakes and accelerators have become electronic, malfunctions due to EMI in cars can cause dangerous situations, he said.

He also mentioned that AI technology is being incorporated into automobiles and other areas, and that it will take a long time for the technology to be fully verified, and that problems such as those caused by electromagnetic waves are not 100% restricted, so there may be problems that did not exist before at the component or module level.

Professor Kim Ji-seong said, “In a situation where such EMI-generating environments are increasing, the government and industry should provide significant support and investment in training and securing experienced EMI experts, as this is absolutely necessary for the development of the domestic electronics industry.”