Webinar: How to Strategically Plan EMC-complaint PCB Stack-Ups
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July 29th, 2026 | 9am PT
COST: FREE
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17
Days
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1
Hours
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17
Minutes
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58
Seconds
Vandana CC
Engineering Project Coordinator at Sierra Circuits
Karen Burnham
President & Chief Engineer of EMC United
This webinar will be hosted on Zoom.
Following this event, you will receive:
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Slides
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Recording
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Design guides
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Tools
Webinar abstract:
Suppose you have followed every recommended layout guideline to ensure EMC, yet your design fails during signal integrity simulation. Where did things go wrong? The root cause lies in a decision made long before the first trace was routed, the stack-up.
In this webinar, you’ll learn how to engineer EMC-compliant PCB stack-ups that reduce design iterations and ensure signal integrity.
Practical strategies for designing high-performance stack-ups
Before creating the stack-up, you must define your design requirements. Identify your product’s electrical, mechanical, and thermal constraints early in the design cycle.
Determine operating frequency, target impedance, and current-carrying requirements. Categorize RF, analog, power, and sensitive signals so that each can be assigned a suitable routing layer and reference plane.
Next, select laminate materials based on electrical performance. Evaluate dielectric constant, dissipation factor, glass transition temperature, CTE, moisture absorption, and dimensional stability according to your application’s operating frequency and environmental conditions.
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For a perfect stack-up strategy, you must choose the appropriate transmission line structure. Use stripline routing whenever lower radiation and better EMI immunity are required because the traces remain enclosed between reference planes. Adopt coplanar waveguides for RF applications, requiring improved field confinement.
To build an EMC-optimized layer stack, position high-speed signal layers adjacent to solid reference planes. Keep power and ground planes closely coupled to increase interplane capacitance. You should also maintain a symmetrical stack-up to improve both EMC performance and manufacturing reliability.
Finally, prepare complete and accurate stack-up documentation. Specify dielectric thicknesses, copper weights, finished board thickness, layer sequence, and impedance requirements. Review the proposed stack-up with your fabricator during the design phase so that your board is manufacturable.
By the end of this session, you’ll understand how to transform a stack-up from planning to a perfectly well-built board. Join this webinar and gain practical approaches for creating EMC-compliant PCB stack-ups.
Webinar agenda:
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How EMC problems originate due to poor stack-up planning
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Defining design requirements before planning a stack-up
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Selecting the best laminate for your prototypes
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Choosing the right transmission line
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Building an EMC-optimized layer stack
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Solid ground planes vs. copper pours
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Tips to avoid board warping and mechanical stress
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Stack-up information your fabricator needs
Vandana CC, Sierra Circuits
With a strong foundation in physics, Vandana CC brings a deep technical understanding to her work in PCB design and electronics manufacturing. She holds a Master’s in Physics and has experience teaching before transitioning into research at the Indian Institute of Science.
At Sierra Circuits, Vandana has played a key role in R&D projects, contributing to the development of engineering tools and calculators, technical content creation, and customer demos. Currently, she focuses on project coordination, ensuring seamless collaboration both within the team and with external partners. Her expertise bridges the gap between technical innovation and practical application, making her an integral part of Sierra Circuits’ engineering efforts.
Karen Burnham, EMC United
Karen Burnham has worked in and around the aerospace, defense, automotive, and broader consulting world since 1996. She has a BS in Physics, an MS in Electrical Engineering, and a talent for translating EMC to English. She has managed requirements and test planning for NASA and the Dream Chaser spaceship and others. She has done troubleshooting on electric vehicles for Ford Motor Company and others. She has initiated innovative SBIRs and STTRs through government centers and worked on classified programs. She has consulted on projects across a wide swath of industries and sits on multiple international standards committees, landing her in her current role of Vice President of Standards for the IEEE EMC Society.
Ms. Burnham founded EMC United, Inc. in 2024 in order to focus on helping companies and hardware designers solve EMC problems, ideally before they even start. She believes that, far from being black magic, EMC can be understandable (and even fun!), and she hopes to spread that passion more widely.
