TIDUF72 August 2024
To add isolation to the RS-232 connection to a PC, the isolated RS-232 portion of this reference design uses capacitive galvanic isolation, which has an inherent life span advantage over an opto-isolator. In particular, industrial devices are usually pressed into service for much longer periods of time than consumer electronics; therefore, maintenance of effective isolation over a period of 15 years or longer is important.
The ISO6731 device is a high-performance, triple-channel digital isolator designed for cost-sensitive applications requiring up to 5000VRMS isolation ratings per UL 1577. This device is also certified by VDE, TUV, CSA, and CQC. The ISO6731 device provides high electromagnetic immunity and low emissions at low-power consumption, while isolating CMOS or LVCMOS digital I/Os. Each isolation channel has a logic input and output buffer separated by TI's double capacitive silicon dioxide (SiO2) insulation barrier. This device comes with enable pins which can be used to put the respective outputs in high impedance for multi-host driving applications.
The ISO6731 device has two forward channels and one reverse-direction channel. In the event of input power or signal loss, the default output is high for the device without suffix F and low for the device with suffix F. In this design, two isolation channels are used for the TX and RX in RS-232 communication mode. This chip supports a signaling rate of 50Mbps and operates from a 1.71V to 1.89V and 2.25V to 5.5V supply in the temperature range: –40°C to +125°C.