A tidbit of news I was handed from inside the standards setting process today is somewhat alarming, though it is - for the moment - affecting only IEC/EN 61326-1's eventual inclusion of heavy industrial and portable devices, and ultimate conversion to a form without any dash-numbering as IEC/EN 61326:1998(?).
But our ITE cousins should read on. Passing Criteria B has been with us for several years now in EN 50082-1:1992 as it applies to ESD/EFT testing. The propsal for IEC/EN 61326's final form is to add an Annex that stipulates "no output shift is allowed whatsoever". It appears that factions within the IEC wish to make Criteria A the only passing criteria available. (Perhaps because of alledged abuse of Criteria B?) IMO a fundamental shift in testing philosophy, such as this, will likely propagate through other product family EMC standards. It will call for a few new technologies that are not currently available, and essentially (IMO) eliminate the use of formerly industry standard unshielded I/O cable formats such as RS-485/232/422 and some marginally shielded schemes (how thick will your mouse cable get?). What considerations are offered for retryable I/O methods such as 10/100 Base-T? Will all unshielded cable formats have to use error-checking or packetized CRC'd data to pass? Is there any discussion, rumors, or other insight offered? Regards, Eric Lifsey National Instruments
