EMI Analysis of

Flyback Converter
SaberRD Design Example

This Design example demonstrates the EMI Analysis of a Flyback Converter. The design is tested for
various techniques to reduce common-mode noise. The common-mode noise from the converter is
compared with the CISPR and FCC standard limits to see if the design complies with the standards.
The transformer is modeled to include the capacitive coupling between windings and leakage
inductances. The use of FFT calculation, available in Saber, is demonstrated to check if the design
complies with the industry standards for EMI specifications. The use of AIM scripting language is
also introduced.

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

Contents

INTRODUCTION 2

FLYBACK CONVERTER DESIGN 2

FLYBACK TRANSFORMER 3
LINE IMPEDANCE STABILIZATION NETWORK (LISN) 3
LINE FILTER 3
CM AND DM NOISE MEASUREMENT 3

EMI REDUCTION TECHNIQUES 4

CM CHOKE AND Y CAPACITORS 4

PASSIVE CANCELLATION 5

EMI ANALYSIS IN SABERRD 5

FFT IN SABERRD 5
RUNNING THE ANALYSIS 7
HOW TO RUN THE SIMULATION 7
RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS 8
EMI ANALYSIS BY NOISE MEASUREMENTS USING FFT CALCULATION 8

CONCLUSION 11

REFERENCES 12

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

Introduction
Switch Mode Power Supplies are being used extensively because of the reduced size, weight, and
cost of the equipment. A Switch Mode Power Supply is a converter in which power switches
operated at high frequencies deliver the required electrical power in the required form. The recent
trends are increasing switching frequencies to reduce the size of the energy storage components
and improve the performance/efficiency of these power converters. The consequence of this trend
is the interference. The high voltages and currents in the converter topology are switched at high
frequencies resulting in Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) with other equipment in the
neighborhood.

EMI can be categorized into the four categories:

1) Conducted Emission - Conducted Emission is emanating high frequency undesired signals

propagated through the physical contact, such as the connecting cables, connectors, etc.
2) Radiated Emission Radiated Emission is caused by the induction process where there is
no physical contact. High frequency signals radiate from the surface of the conductors and
couple with the nearby equipment through air or other means.
3) Conducted Susceptibility Conducted Susceptibility is the ability to reject the high
frequency disturbances being injected through the connecting cables/connectors.
4) Radiated Susceptibility Radiated susceptibility is the ability of the equipment to reject the
undesired high frequency signals trying to couple through air or other means.

Various government bodies have instituted standards, which set specific limits on the quantities of
radiated and conducted noise emissions in order for a product to be sold within that country. In the
United States, these regulatory bodies are the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the
Department of Defense (DOD). In Europe, all standards are set by the European Economic
Consortium (EEC). There is also an international body called the International Special Committee
on Radio Interference (CISPR), a committee of the International Electrontechnical Commission
(IEC), which has no regulatory authority but sets standards that can then be adopted by individual
nations in order to facilitate international trade. This example aims at testing the design for meeting
the FCC and CISPR standards for Class-A equipment.

The noise can be of Differential Mode (DM), where the circuit forms a closed path with out-of-phase
currents and applying Kirchoffs current Law in the loop gives zero. The other noise is the Common-
mode (CM) noise, where the circuit loop has in-phase noise currents.

This design example focuses on Conducted Emissions emanating from the Flyback Converter and
the filtering techniques being implemented to bring the CM noise within acceptable limits.

Flyback Converter Design

The flyback converter design in this example is an AC/DC converter, which converts Single Phase
AC supply to DC output. The aim of this design example is to understand the behavior of the flyback
converter for Conducted Emissions. The methods to measure the Common-mode noise are detailed
and then a few common techniques used to filter the CM noises are analyzed.

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Figure 1 shows the SaberRD schematic of the flyback converter.

Figure 1: Flyback Converter Schematic in SaberRD

The converter is operated in open loop mode with the switch operated at 100kHz switching
frequency as the area of interest is the measurement of noise and not the closed loop operation of
the converter. The input is also a dc source though the actual source is ac. This is to reduce the
complexity in taking the circuit to steady state for noise measurements.

The key elements of this design are:

Flyback Transformer
This is modeled as a linear transformer with the turns ratio of 10:10:1 (primary : compensating :
secondary). The leakage inductances, bypass capacitances, cross coupling capacitance, and other
parasitic elements are modeled to allow for noise currents to pass between all three windings of the
transformer. The compensating winding is placed to aid for one of the noise filtering techniques
that will be explained in the following sections.

Line Impedance Stabilization Network (LISN)

The input terminals of the converter are connected to a Line Impedance Stabilization Network
(LISN). The LISN is placed in series with the power line and also serves as the measuring point for
the conducted mode testing.

Line Filter
A common method to filter Common-mode noise is the CM choke in combination with the Y Caps.
The CM Choke has two windings, which are coupled to each other and cancels the CM noise. The Y
caps form the path to ground for the cancelled CM currents.

CM and DM Noise Measurement

The measurement outputs from the LISN are input to a CM and DM measurement circuit to get the
readable output for the noise measurements.

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EMI Reduction Techniques

As mentioned in the previous section, this demo considers the FCC and CISPR standards to check if
the design meets the standards. The conducted emission limits as function of frequency, prescribed
by these standards for a Class A equipment is shown in the Figure 2.

Figure 2: Conduction Emission Limits for FCC Part 15, Subpart J and CISPR, Publication 22.

The techniques implemented in the design example for reducing the common-mode noise are:

CM Choke and Y Capacitors

Common-mode noise is suppressed by using a common-mode choke coil and capacitor (line bypass
capacitor or Y-capacitor) installed between each line and the metallic casing/ground.

A common-mode choke coil is installed in the input section of the power supply line to suppress
common-mode noise. Since magnetic flux cancels out inside the ferrite core, impedance is not
produced for differential mode current. The magnetic saturation problem is small. Common-mode
choke coils are suited for common-mode noise suppression on lines with large current flow, such as
AC/DC power supply lines. Since they do not affect signal waveform, they are also suited for
common-mode noise suppression on lines where signal waveform distortion causes a problem,
such as video signal lines.

The Y-capacitor returns noise to the noise source in the following order: Y-capacitor metallic
casing stray capacitance noise source.

The values of L and C are selected in such a way that the magnitude of common-mode voltage at
lower frequencies is less than the limit set by the FCC and CISPR standards. As the frequency
increases, gain rolls off and the magnitude at higher frequencies will automatically be attenuated.

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Passive Cancellation
A flyback converter can be modified to incorporate passive CM noise cancellation technique easily.
In this case, a compensation winding (NC) is added to the main power transformer/flyback
transformer. The NC uses small gauge wire as the currents that are intended into this winding are
just the noise currents and it would be a fairly cheap addition to the transformer. This winding can
be interwound with the primary winding for a 1:1 turns ratio.

The other added component is the compensation capacitor CCOMP. This is used to generate the anti-
noise current that will cancel out the parasitic noise current generated by C PARA (parasitic
capacitance). The value of CCOMP is determined by the size of CPARA and the turns ratio NP:NC. If this
ratio is 1:1, then CCOMP should be set equal to CPARA; otherwise it should be sized such that

iCOMP = CPARA dV/dt.

EMI Analysis in SaberRD

SaberRD aides in analyzing the design for its noise spectrum and sees if the final design meets the
standards, it has to comply with. The FFT calculation available in the waveform calculator is a very
useful feature to perform Fast Fourier Transform on the signals.

FFT in SaberRD
It is required that the electrical signals be transformed to frequency spectrum to check with the
standards frequency spectrum limits. Snapshot in Figure 3 shows the location of FFT calculation in
Waveform Calculator.

Figure 3: FFT Calculation in Waveform Calculator

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

To access the FFT calculation, select Analyze Tab Waveform Calculator Wave button FFT.
The output of this calculation is the frequency spectrum of the signal.

Upon giving the required waveform and selecting FFT calculation from the waveform calculator as
shown in Figure 3, a window shows up as seen in the Figure 4.

Figure 4: FFT Calculation Options

The tool allows selecting the number of points to be displayed/calculated. The Time start and Time
stop options are helpful to select the portion of the waveform, which is in steady state and has the
required details for running FFT calculation. In addition to selecting the Windowing function, the
tool can calculate the THD/SNR/SINAD values. Detailed information on FFT Calculation is provided
in SaberRD Documentation.

Provide the necessary values, and select the required options for performing FFT on the signal.
Click OK on this window, and click the waveform button on the waveform calculator. This shows up
the FFT waveform, which is the magnitude and phase plots.

In case of common-mode noise measurement, the waveform from the LISN is taken and the
common-mode voltage is measured. The frequency spectrum for this voltage in steady state is
obtained by the FFT calculation and the resultant waveform is compared with the standards shown
in Figure 2.

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

The process of taking the common-mode voltage signal to waveform calculator to getting a final
output showing a comparison with standard limits can be automated using the scripting language
called AIM. The AIM scripting language allows the users to create customized workflows/interfaces
so that the advanced features of SaberRD are utilized to perform common functionalities. In this
example, a script is available which when executed, gives graphs that clearly shows the frequency
spectrum of common-mode voltage compared with the FCC and CISPR standards limits. Details of
how the AIM scripting language can be used are given in SaberRD Documentation.

Running the Analysis

The flyback converter is simulated for transient analysis to get the time domain characteristics. The
end time is selected such that the steady state is reached. As described in the previous sections, the
FFT is performed on the common-mode voltage waveform. The common-mode voltage waveform is
obtained from the transient analysis.

There are four conditions tested for in this design example:

1) Transient Analysis without filtering.

2) Transient Analysis with compensating filter.
3) Transient Analysis with CM choke and Y capacitors.
4) Transient Analysis with both filters.

To automate the simulation process, an experiment is created to run all the four conditions. The
experiment is transient_analysis_for_fft.ai_expt. Once the analysis is complete, the
plotfiles are generated and saved on the working directory. To automate the process of analyzing
the waveforms for FFT and comparison with FCC and CISPR standards, an AIM script
(fft_proc.aim) is available. Run the AIM script and four graphs are created, which has plots of
common-mode noise compared with the limits of FCC and CISPR standards. A graph is plotted to
show the amplitudes of common-mode voltage waveforms for each filtering technique
implemented in the design.

How to Run the Simulation

1) Open the design Flyback_emi.ai_dsn from the attached design files.
2) Go to Simulate Tab. Select Experiment in the Analysis and
transient_analysis_for_fft in the experiments list.
3) Click the GO Button.
4) Once the experiment progress is 100%, the results pane shows the Experiment Report
which has the measurements of Common-Mode noise voltages.
5) Double click on the Experiment Report and the table shown in Figure 6 opens up.
6) Go to SaberRD Command Transcript, and provide the following command in the command
line and press Enter.

source fft_proc.aim

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

Figure 5: Entering AIM Command in SaberRD Command Transcript

7) The AIM script runs and five graphs shown in Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9, Figure 10 and
Figure 11 opens up.

Results and Observations

Transient Simulation is performed on the design to measure the Common-Mode noise. The output
of the LISN is passed through the CM and DM measurement circuit to get the waveforms of
Common-Mode and Differential-Mode noise voltages in the circuit. Before running FFT Calculation
for obtaining the exact values of noise amplitude with respect to frequency, a peak to peak value
measurement is included in the Experiment to show the variation of the amplitude of Common-
Mode noise voltage for each case of transient simulation. The Experiment Report records the
measurements made in the Experiment. Double clicking on the Experiment Report shows the table
as in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Common-Mode noise measured from the Transient Simulations

It can be observed that the common-mode noise voltage amplitude is reducing with each filtering
technique, explained in the previous sections, inserted. Now, the next step is to analyze the
common-mode voltage noise level with respect to frequency.

EMI Analysis by noise measurements using FFT calculation

To do this, an AIM script is run. The script retrieves the common-mode voltage (cm_uv)
waveforms from all the four transient analyses, runs FFT calculation on them and displays the
frequency spectrum of each transient simulation. In addition to this, each graph also contains the
FCC and CISPR limit waveform to show a comparison of the level of noise with reference to the
limits. Explained below are the graphs that resulted from running the script.

In Figure 7, the measured Common-Mode voltage waveforms are plotted. It can be seen that the
peak-to-peak value is reducing when filters are introduced. The values are in line with the
Experiment Report shown in Figure 6.
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Figure 7: Common-Mode noise voltage waveforms for each transient simulation

Figure 8: Common-Mode Noise without Filtering

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

It can be seen in Figure 8 that the noise levels are beyond the limits defined by FCC and CISPR
standards. It is required that necessary filtering be provided to sell this product in the respective
markets.

Figure 9: Common-Mode noise with Compensation Filtering

From Figure 9, it can be seen that the noise levels reduced and the noise levels are marginally above
the limits of FCC and CISPR standards.

Figure 10: Common-Mode noise with CM choke and Y Capacitor Filter

It is established in Figure 10 that the common-mode choke and Y capacitor filter which is designed
to reject the noise signals above the limit at lower frequencies is working fine. The gain at higher
frequencies rolls off at 40dB/dec after the corner frequency and hence the higher frequency noise

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signals are attenuated to levels, which are far below the limits. The noise levels are marginally
below the FCC and CISPR limits before the cut-off frequency. It is always better to have some
margin so that any other parasitic elements may cause the noise levels to rise.

Figure 11: Common-Mode noise with both filters in place

Finally, Figure 11 shows that the common-mode noise is having greater margin with respect to the
limits of FCC and CISPR standards. This is the best choice where the filters are optimally designed
and are making the design/equipment pass by a comfortable margin.

Conclusion
This design example details the procedure for performing EMI Analysis on power converters using
Flyback Converter topology. It is understood that the design without filtering does not pass the FCC
and CISPR standards under Class A equipment category. The two individual filtering techniques
show a reduction in the noise levels but when both the filtering techniques are employed, the noise
test is passed with comfortable margin.

SaberRD provides a very useful FFT calculation for this purpose and gives accurate results. The
waveforms from different plotfiles resulted from each analysis are automatically run for FFT and
the results are plotted in an easily readable format by using AIM script. Hence, SaberRD proves to
be a promising solution for running EMI Analysis.

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 EMI Analysis of Flyback Converter |SaberRD Design Example |

References
1) Daniel Cochrane, Passive Cancellation of Common-Mode Electromagnetic Interference in
Switching Power Converters, M.Sc (EE) Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University.
2) Module 11: Conducted Emissions -
http://www.egr.msu.edu/em/research/goali/notes/module11_conducted.pdf
3) Mark Steffka, Conducted Emissions and Power Supply Filters, IEEE EMC Society Central
Texas Chapter, January 19, 2011.

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