A global leader in high-performance semiconductors for signal-processing applications, Analog Devices, Inc., is introducing the industry’s first isolated half-bridge gate drivers that incorporate isolated power and isolated gate drivers in one package. Other competitive products such as optocoupler isolated gate drivers, require separate power isolation. Integration eliminates components, reduces system cost and size by as much as 50 percent, and improves system reliability and quality by simplifying designs. The new products will come, furthermore, pre-approved with safety approvals normally required for discrete-based isolated power supplies.

Analog Devices’ engineers integrated an isolated power supply and isolated gate drivers in the same package by using the company’s award-winning iCoupler® technology. Isolated high-side and low-side outputs together with ADI’s proprietary isoPower™ integrated, isolated power, are provided by this technology. isoPower leverages iCoupler technology’s chip-scale micro-transformers along with high-voltage CMOS to create an isolated dc-to-dc converter.

The ADuM5230 and ADuM6132 are designed for implementations that include plasma displays, motor drives, and power inverters found in power supplies and solar power converters. The integrated, isolated converter, powers on both devices, both the high-side output as well as any external buffer circuitry, eliminating the cost, space, and design complexity associated with external power supply configurations.

The ADuM5230 and ADuM6132 differ in power capability and high-side/low-side isolation configuration. The high-side and low-side outputs in the ADuM5230, which supplies 150 mW of power, are isolated from each other as well as from the inputs. In the ADuM6132, which supplies 250 mW of power, only the high-side output is isolated from the input.

The ADuM5230 and ADuM6132, in contrast to gate drivers employing high-voltage level translation methodologies, offer the benefit of true galvanic isolation between the inputs and outputs. On both products, the outputs may be operated up to ±700 V (peak) relative to each other. On the ADuM5230, the isolated outputs may be operated up to ±700 V (peak) relative to the inputs, thereby supporting low-side switching to negative voltages.