EMI shielding with electrically conductive pressure sensitive tapes

The increase in importance of effective EMI (electromagnetic interference) shielding is obvious from the ever increasing space devoted to this problem in technical journals. The required attention to the shielding aspects of design, of components and equipments, has become a significant part of manufacturing costs. This paper describes a new tool or tools to assist the design engineer in overcoming the problem of RF leakage. Pressure sensitive tapes with metal for backing have been available for some years and these do provide a limited degree of shielding. More recently metal foil tapes that are electrically conductive through, rather than just along the tape, have become available. These increase the utility of the metal foil backing in shielding applications by a factor of 100 +, because they now provide a mechanism for direct conductivity from a metal surface to the tape backing.