Few Question on Digital isolators

Hi David,

Thanks for using the Digital Isolators Forum!

1. Yes that is correct, TI uses capacitive digital isolator technology. I'll paste a section of a recent analog applications journal article that sums up this technology's advantages:

Recent advances in capacitive digital isolators place them at the forefront of technology. These new isolators offer higher isolation performance, long-term reliability, increased channel integration, higher data rates and precision timing performance, better quality package mold compound, wider packages (14.5-mm creepage/clearance), and CMTI exceeding 100 kV/µs. Combining these features enables new applications, reduces system cost, and allows end-equipment manufacturers to push the performance envelope of their solutions.

Texas Instruments offers the ISO78xx family of reinforced digital isolators and the ISO585x and ISO545x families of reinforced isolated IGBT gate drivers. These isolators offer features and capabilities that can solve difficult isolation problems. These isolators have a working voltage of up to 1500 VRMS, are rated for 40 years, have surge voltage capability of 12.8 kV, and withstand a temporary overvoltage of 5700 VRMS. They offer high data rates of up to 100 Mbps with low skews and part-to-part variations and CMTI exceeding 100 kV/us. They also use material group I mold compound and are available in industry-leading wide packages.

2. Correct, in the on-off keying (OOK) based architecture there is a high frequency oscillator. (Here’s a link to the Digital Isolator Design Guide which describes OOK, edge based architectures, and some other useful terms more in depth). If you look in the conceptual block diagram, you’ll also note that this is spread spectrum to keep emissions low.

We have done internal testing on our parts and have found that the radiated emissions are very low, especially compared to some of our competition, but depending on your application this could potentially still be an issue. We’ve found that many of these issues can be fixed after the team gives a schematic and layout review, which we would be more than happy to do for you. But in general our isolators are very quiet. For example, ISO7741 passes CISPR22 with a good deal of margin. Perhaps you could share a block diagram and some more information about your specific application and we can give you a better idea of whether or not these high frequencies should be of concern.

Please let me know if I’ve answered your question or if you have any additional questions.

Best regards,

Dan