TI unveils ‘lowest power’ bi-directional I2C isolators

With a maximum current of less than 8.5mA at 5V, the ics are optimised to reduce heat generation in industrial applications such as power supplies, networking, telecommunications, Power over Ethernet and battery management systems. They also employ a unique capacitive isolation technology with a silicon dioxide barrier to separate logic input and output buffers. This approach is said to extend the lifetime of the isolators by more than three times compared to optocouplers or magnetic isolators. The ISO1540 provides two isolated bidirectional channels for clock and data lines for use in applications that have multiple masters, while the ISO1541 includes a bidirectional data and a unidirectional clock channel for use in single master applications. TI claims the isolators offer the highest possible reliability in harsh environments (±50-kV/us typical transient immunity), as well as the fastest switching time in the industry (maximum propagation delay is rated at 62ns).