Isolation IC is tight, fast, and furious
By Bill Schweber -- EDN, May 27, 2004
When your digital signals need to go from point A to B but without an ohmic path, you use an isolator. The five-channel IL261 IsoLoop from NVE Corp provides this isolation but not via the common optical technique. Instead, this devices uses spintronic giant magnetoresistors, along with supporting CMOS circuitry. The vendor claims these solid-state couplers are the fastest available, supporting 110-Mbaud rates, 10-nsec typical propagation delay, 2-nsec pulse-width distortion, and 2-nsec channel-to-channel skew. In addition, these couplers are dense: The five-channel unit, incorporating four transmitting channels and one receiving channel, is available in a 0.3-in.-wide and a 0.15-in.-wide SOIC-16 package.
Isolation is 2500V rms with 30-kV/μsec transient immunity. The units are UL1577-approved and are awaiting corresponding IEC approval; they operate from –40 to +85°C without any derating. Applications include data-transmission paths, isolating A/D and D/A converters, ground-loop elimination, and digital-noise reduction. The price for the IL261 is $5.46 (1000).
NVE Corp, 1-952-829-9217, www.nve.com.
