An innovation that began at the beginning of the century, digital isolation technology builds a physical security barrier at the edge of the intelligent era

"Oops, it feels like an electric shock!"

In real life, people often jokingly refer to the feeling of falling in love at first sight as "electric shock". However, in real life, apart from the static electric shocks often encountered in northern winter, there are probably very few people who have actually experienced the accidental experience of electric shock, and that feeling is definitely not "wonderful". Fortunately, under various mandatory electronic product safety design specifications, it is rare for the public to hear about electric shock incidents in real life. In fact, this is due to the strict electronic product safety design specifications, especially in recent years, new energy vehicles supported by high-voltage batteries, ubiquitous charging facilities, industrial environments filled with robots, and medical equipment with high requirements for life safety protection. The safety protection requirements based on isolation technology are getting higher and higher.

On the other hand, due to reasons such as data privacy, response latency, power consumption, and cost, edge computing devices are increasingly being used. Various communications are required between edge perception, edge execution, and edge processing, and the demand for isolation to protect systems and personal safety is also increasing. In addition to the security protection of smart edge devices based on good isolation technology supported by high-speed data communications, data reliability is also another "rigid need" for isolation design. The isolation protection design of smart edge devices is also a key area of ​​focus for ADI, the inventor of global magnetic isolation technology and a high-performance semiconductor technology provider. Under its vision of activating edge intelligence, digital isolation technology has also become an important foundation for ADI to enable edge intelligence.

ADI digital isolation technology brings trusted security protection to a variety of intelligent edge applications

Starting from the "rigid need" of security, it goes beyond security. Explain the several dimensions of edge smart device isolation needs

According to Fortune Business Insights, the edge intelligence market is expected to grow from US$15.6 billion in 2022 to US$107.47 billion in 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 31.7%. Taking industrial manufacturing as an example, industrial modernization is gradually accelerating its transformation to intelligent manufacturing, and has led to the popularization of edge intelligence devices represented by robots. In modern factory manufacturing environments, it has become the norm for a small number of operators to work closely with various intelligent robots. It is particularly important to have "intimate" contact with these "partners" who rely on high voltage electricity to avoid safety designs that are harmful to electric shock. Isolation is an indispensable design element in the technical solutions for these devices.

Digital isolation technology forms a safety boundary between high voltage and people, assets and data, and protects data from destructive electromagnetic interference.

On the other hand, the development of edge intelligence has also contributed to the rapid popularization of health and medical equipment. According to the data from the "Insights into the Trend of Home-based Consumption of Diagnosis and Treatment" released by Alibaba Health Research Institute and Tmall Health, two-thirds of health e-commerce users have purchased home medical devices. For home medical electronic equipment that uses mains power and is in close contact with humans, safety is of paramount importance. Absolute safety isolation between high-voltage mains power and the user contact surface is one of the mandatory requirements for product certification. In many other fields, whether it is new energy vehicles, high-voltage charging piles, energy storage or traditional household appliances, strong electrical isolation safety protection is a necessary requirement for product certification specifications in various industries, including TUV , 3C , CE , UL , etc.

As one of the necessary technologies to protect the intelligent edge, ADI iCoupler digital isolation product series has been tested and certified by various regulatory agencies, including UL , CSA , VDE , TÜV , CQC , ATEX and IECEx .

The current life safety protection of electronic products is not limited to avoiding accidents caused by electric shock, but also needs to take into account more aspects of safety, such as electromagnetic radiation. In fact, electromagnetic radiation not only causes potential damage to human health, but may also cause many other problems. For example, the necessary isolation measures for edge smart devices are not limited to the safety protection of users, but also the key guarantee of the reliability of smart devices, which needs to fully meet various electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) standards. Since edge nodes usually play the role of detecting, measuring, interpreting and connecting data, electromagnetic radiation may have a significant impact on the accuracy of data and product reliability.

Graphical representation of the EMC/ reliability performance of ADI's iCoupler family of devices .

The rapid growth of edge intelligence has also driven the transmission of signals and data to play a key role in more and more systems. These terminal devices require not only stable infrastructure, but also safe, fast, high-precision, interference-free, and high-bandwidth transmission paths. The transmission path may need to withstand extremely harsh environmental conditions. Adding isolation to high-speed link interfaces can improve performance in these harsh environments, but this has never been a simple task. When the data rate is higher than 250 Mbps, it exceeds the bandwidth range of most isolators, including optocouplers, forcing system designers to adopt more complex technologies.

ADI iCoupler technology supports serial data and protocol isolation up to 2.5Gbps

In addition, many edge smart device application areas are sensitive to specifications such as cost, size, and power consumption, and these unavoidable performance trade-offs are often regrettable. For many years, design engineers have used optocouplers or capacitive isolators to barely cope with these shortcomings. In a large number of critical edge smart applications, any compromise on safety, reliability, and accuracy is unacceptable. The unique performance advantages of ADI digital isolator iCoupler can avoid these adverse performance trade-offs and use digital isolators to achieve smaller size, higher energy efficiency, and more cost-effective designs.

Interpreting the new isolation requirements under the trend of edge intelligence from three key application areas

Personal safety is always the first requirement for any system reliability design, and mission-critical systems also have high reliability requirements. For example, a factory shutdown monitoring system requires robust integrity of quality data measurements. Costly data errors will eventually lead to unplanned maintenance, greatly reducing efficiency, or even disabling the entire system. Intelligence starts at the edge node, and the old saying applies here: if it’s garbage in, it’s garbage out. In addition to safety, isolating noise to ensure accurate data transmission is also one of the key requirements.

Camera machine vision and robotics involving Ethernet, USB or Camera Link interfaces

Edge intelligence is widely used in various robotic devices in the industrial field, among which guided robots based on machine vision play an important role in providing higher flexibility and higher production reliability in high-value manufacturing environments. With machine vision, robots can perform more intelligent tasks. There are many ways to implement machine vision camera interfaces, including USB 2.0, USB 3.0, Camera Link, or Gigabit Ethernet. In addition to industrial Ethernet, including USB ports commonly used in industrial controllers, measures are generally required to improve EMC, such as LVDS physical layer to improve EMC through electromagnetic isolation. In addition, on these smart devices, human-machine interfaces (HMIs) are often used to display data from programmable logic controllers in a human-readable visual representation, and integrated reinforced isolation is also required to protect operators from electrical hazards.

Block diagram of a typical solar energy system with energy storage system

Isolators are widely used in solar energy systems. If you open the inverter controller housing of a typical solar energy system, you can find digital isolation products in many places, including isolation of gate drive signals and isolation of digital feedback in voltage control loops. In addition, the application of various monitoring, monitoring and communication functions is turning solar energy and energy storage systems into intelligent edge terminals in a sense. Due to the increasing power density in solar inverters and the need for energy storage balance, this generation of solar power generation requires a lot of monitoring of all components of the solar energy system. For solar energy applications such as energy storage, communication is critical because it reports the power generation and consumption activities in solar energy installations to users to implement a variety of system strategies, such as bill management, photovoltaic self-use, reduction of demand charges and backup power. For these solar photovoltaic applications, RS-485 or CAN communication interfaces are usually run through long cables in an environment full of electrical noise. Adding iCoupler isolation can further improve noise immunity, and enhanced EMC robustness can shorten the design and test time of interface circuits, thereby accelerating the time to market of solar photovoltaic networks.