ABSTRACT
There is a flurry of activity from standards committees to formulate and adopt Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) performance standards for medical electronics. These standards are intended to limit emissions from equipment and to establish the minimum levels of interference that equipment must tolerate. As medical electronics has proliferated, we have found electronics being operated in increasingly hostile environments in the hospital, clinic, and residence. As would be expected, with increasing equipment usage, there are increasing complaints of equipment anomalies and actual failures. There is no doubt that EMI can and does cause problems. Sadly, there is also no doubt that many claims of interference are without basis. The IEC EMI requirements serve as the basis for all the current and pending EMI requirements. The primary requirements include emissions, radio frequency interference, electrostatic discharge, and various forms of power and signal line interference.
