How to EMI Shield Servers and Data Centres
Data centres and servers are vital infrastructure components, responsible for storing, communicating, and transporting the massive amounts of information generated daily. These applications play a key role in everything from facilitating modern conveniences to ensuring mission-critical data exchanges, and keeping them at peak performance with no downtime is a top organisational priority.
Due to the power and volume of electrical applications, high-frequency electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding must be carefully and proactively managed. And as electronics get faster and more powerful, these considerations become more important than ever. High-powered devices are more likely to require an increased level of EMI shielding and are likely to generate a lot of heat, which can cause models to fail if the right precautions aren’t utilised.
Data centres must find ways to evolve with emerging technologies and utilise products and systems that can perform in these environments.
Gasketing options for EMI shielding
There are several solutions that can be used to ensure adequate EMI shielding for servers and data centres. It’s important to find the right electrically conductive gasket for your application, and Parker Chomerics offers several options within our proven SOFT-SHIELD® product family.
One option within the Soft-Shield family is Fabric-over-foam (FoF) conductive gaskets. FoF provides a very economical solution for low-closure force electronic applications that require EMI shielding and electrical grounding. To create this - product, engineers start with a non-conductive low-density foam and then wrap conductive fabric around it. By combining the conductive properties of an electrically conductive fabric and the conformability of a foam core construction, the SOFT-SHIELD FoF product family ensures both high conductivity and high cycle reliability at an affordable price. FoF products offer a lot of engineering flexibility as well and can be custom-designed to suit specific applications.
One FoF product that is ideal for most data centre and server applications is SOFT-SHIELD 3500. These EMI shielding gaskets utilise a soft urethane foam core that is wrapped in a conductive nickel-plated copper fabric. The result is an excellent compression set in low-closure force applications requiring high shielding effectiveness.
Another economical EMI shielding option for data centres and servers is conductive foam products. Conductive foam solutions from Parker Chomerics are unique in that they contain embedded silver-plated fibers versus traditionally used conductive particles. Most conductive foams often lose their integrity when particles are added and subsequently won’t bounce back easily resulting in poor compression set. Instead of particles, we use fibers that run the length of the foam itself. These fibers maintain their contact from one side of the surface to the other, helping them maintain good electrical contact and good compression set.
SOFT-SHIELD 4850 conductive foam is an excellent choice to protect servers and data centers from the harmful impacts of EMI. This product contains silver-plated fibers that are embedded into low-density, open-cell urethane foam for stable electrical performance as well as superb conductivity with extremely short ground paths. SOFT-SHIELD 4850 also offers great design flexibility, coming in sheets that can be dye cut to fit many different applications.
Both SOFT-SHIELD 3500 and 4850 provide very low compression force because they are soft and allow for a large deflection range, which means they won’t damage fragile electrical components within applications. Additionally, both have high-temperature formulations which utilise a silicone foam for operating temperatures up to 125°C.