Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1441485
14 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2022 Barry Matties: You need physical separation? Buja: Exactly. It is like taking a Dremel and then cutting a hole right through the board so that the voltage would float around the open- ing of the hole rather than taking the shortest route between two points. Matties: at must have been a challenging board to design and build. Buja: When he showed it to me, it was in pretty classic shapes. Some of them were an actual "S" shape that they had cut in there. ey had used a finite analyzer and gone through the process of cutting these in between the trans- formers and some very large diodes. e only real way to solve it, in essence, is creepage and clearance. And we've also put that inside of our mainstream solution, eCADSTAR. Sanu, how is it looking on your end, as far as high voltages incorporating higher gauge cabling from the customers that you're deal- ing with? Are you separating out high-voltage cables? Sanu Warrier: I deal with most of the electrical side and the cables and harnesses side of it. On the cable and harness design side, EV design has not added new challenges. Well, there are always new challenges, but it's sort of taking it from one industry and taking it to the other. So, for example, we've always had high-volt- age design when it comes to multiple thousand kVs being designed at some of our customers for our utilities, for example. But taking that and miniaturizing that has been a challenge on the board. For example, there are several challenges when you get into that high-voltage line we're talking about. Voltage is one piece, how many amps you're running through your board is the other, and then you're talking about materials that can handle that load and not melt. at comes along with the cables as well. Take your EV charger, for example. When your EV is running on the road, that's fine. But when you connect it to a charger, it needs to meet a certain UL and CSA specification. How do you manage that? at's a challenge people are working with. If you take Tesla as an example, they build EVs and they also have their wall charger. I think they're trying to make a simple design, but it is challenging to meet those require- ments in every country—how the wires need to be and how the separation needs to be. Can- ada and the U.S. have something different, and Europe has its own regulations. Europe now is trying to mandate such a high voltage that it can be charged in 15 or 30 minutes. ey want to standardize that, but then everyone dealing with Europe must follow that standard. Even the U.S. has three different standards for charging right now, depending on the manufacturer, and depending on that board as well. Which wires are you going to use, how do you separate them, and how do you put it together? Are the harmonics in the wires com- ing in hitting the board? Is your board now becoming a big radio? Matties: What are the challenges for the board designer? Is this a new set of design rules and Andy Buja