New standard concerning SAR testing IEC/IEEE 62209-1528 was issued by IEC and IEE on October 19, 2020. New IEC/IEEE 62209-1528 standard substitutes three already existing standards IEC 62209-1:2016, IEC 62209-2:2010, and IEEE Std 1528-2013.
The new standard brings several substantial changes to SAR testing in comparison with the existing ones. The changes are primarily focused on testing of devices with proximity sensors, uncertainty analysis, application specific phantoms and device holder specifications, among others.
According to the new standard SAR testing frequency range was expanded from down to 4 MHz and up to 10 GHz. These frequencies are used by many RFID and NFC devices, such as credit cards, secure access, wireless chargers, personnel identification, and wireless payment systems. There only a few labs able to test down to 9 MHz frequency, and TESTiLABS is one of them.
ISED (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) has already declared the standard to be obligatory in Canada. This implies SAR testing report or SAR exemption report is mandatory for devices operating at a frequency range from 4 MHz to 6 GHz. As for the devices using frequency above 6 GHz, the power density is sufficient metric for evaluating RF exposure compliance. Read more about the subject from notice 2020-DRS0020.
