Developing a Universal Exchange Format for Near-Field Scan Data John Shepherd 1 , Atsushi Nakamura 2 , Frederic Lafon 3 , Etienne Sicard 4 , Mohamed Ramdani 5 , David Pommerenke 6 , Giorgi Muchaidze 7 , Sebastien Serpaud 8 1 Freescale Semiconductor Toulouse, France john.shepherd@freescale.com 2 Renesas Technology Corp Tokyo, Japan nakamura.atsushi@renesas.com 3 Valeo Creteil, France frederic.lafon@valeo.com 4 INSA Toulouse, France etienne.sicard@insa-toulouse.fr 5 ESEO Angers, France mohamed.ramdani@eseo.fr 6 Missouri University of Science and Technology ROLLA, MO 65409, USA davidjp@mst.edu 7 Amber Precision Instruments Santa Clara, CA 95954, USA giorgi@amberpi.com 8 Nexio Toulouse, France sebastien.serpaud@nexio.fr Abstract—Near-field scan measurements and simulations generate a large amount of data. The format of the data is closely linked to the supplier of the acquisition or simulation software, rendering extremely difficult its exchange between suppliers, customers, EDA tool vendors, academics, etc. The paper describes how a universal exchange format for near-field scan data has been developed. The format caters for various coordinate systems and is suited to emission and immunity testing both in the frequency and time domains. I. INTRODUCTION Near-field scan (NFS) measurements, as described for example in [1], and simulations generate a large amount of data. Many different formats are used for storing the data, thereby rendering extremely difficult its exchange and comparison between measurements and simulations from various sources. Data from NFS measurements may be used to generate models such as ICEM and ICIM [2] and such data should therefore be readily available and easily accessible. The proposed format is intended to facilitate exchange of near-field scan data between industrials, academics, EDA tool vendors and end customers. It is based on the well-known XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format [3], which is both machine and human readable. Its structure allows the files to be generated and processed on any operating system. In order to limit file size, it is possible to store the information and data in a single file or multiple files. Moreover, the ASCII-based XML format allows the files to be compressed to a very high level with readily available compression software. A first version of the XML exchange format, limited to the Cartesian coordinate system and fixed field orientation, has been presented in [4]. The present version has been submitted to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as a Draft Technical Report [5] II. FEATURES The techniques used for NFS are constantly evolving and the universal exchange format must allow future techniques to be included without the need for complete remodeling. The format should also be portable between operating systems, as well as both human and machine readable. The XML format