Stripline Set-Up for Characterizing the Effect of Corrosion and Ageing on the Shielding Effectiveness of EMI Gaskets with Improved Repeatability

This paper introduces a stable and repeatable measurement set-up to characterize the effect of corrosion and/or ageing on the high-frequency shielding-effectiveness of gaskets. The measurement set-up is based on an improved design of the removable module that was used in an earlier developed stripline set-up for board level shielding. The modified removable module design incorporates the RF -source in the modules itself. This drastically increases the repeatability between consecutive measurements. Since the module is removable, it can be placed in, for example, a climate chamber, keeping the gasket under the same compression during the full ageing cycle. Preliminary results on the effect of ageing are presented based on four different gaskets which have been stressed under the same ageing cycle. This experiment shows that this measurement set-up can now be used for the correct characterization of ageing on the shielding effectiveness of gaskets.