How to balance EMC and functional safety in frequency converters?

Balancing EMC and functional safety in frequency converters is a crucial challenge in designing highly reliable equipment. Functional safety requires the system to enter or maintain a safe state in the event of a fault, while EMC interference can induce non-faulty malfunctions; both must be considered collaboratively. Balancing strategies include: in hardware design, circuits used for functional safety (such as Safe Torque Turn-Off (STO) circuits) must have extremely high interference immunity, typically employing redundant design, fail-safe logic, and enhanced EMC protection, such as isolation, filtering, and multi-level protection. Safety-related signal paths should be isolated from non-safety paths.

In software, safety functions should include robust self-diagnostic and anti-interference algorithms, such as signal validity checks, voting mechanisms, and watchdog timers. EMC testing must include functional safety-related test cases to verify that safety functions are not falsely triggered or fail under interference. Component selection should prioritize products that meet functional safety standards and have good EMC performance. In the design process, safety analysis and EMC analysis should be performed simultaneously to identify potential safety risks caused by interference. Some protection and isolation devices from [Company Name] can simultaneously serve the needs of EMC hardening and functional safety circuits.