Another way to reduce EMI relates directly to the microcontroller you use in your design. It’s an underappreciated fact that – when it comes to noise performance – not all microcontrollers are created equal. If you select a device based solely on its price or working clock frequency, you could get a chip that has less than optimum noise performance. That deficiency might complicate and lengthen the development process and necessitate the addition of compensating noise-reduction components that boost overall system cost. A better, easier, and typically less-expensive approach is to pick a microcontroller designed from the outset to minimize noise problems. A “quiet” MCU in the Renesas M16C series is a good choice.