Isolators

Isolators provide electrical isolation between circuits while allowing signal or power transfer — critical for safety, noise immunity, and level shifting in mixed-voltage systems. This category includes digital isolators (CMOS, capacitive, magnetic), optocouplers/optoisolators, isolated gate drivers (for MOSFET/IGBT/SiC), isolated ADCs/amplifiers, and isolated DC-DC converter modules. Key parameters: isolation voltage (1kV-5kV+), data rate (Mbps), propagation delay, common-mode transient immunity (CMTI), and number of channels. Digital isolators offer higher speed and longer lifetime vs traditional optocouplers. Isolated gate drivers with reinforced isolation are essential for high-voltage SiC/GaN power converters and motor drives. Popular manufacturers: Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Broadcom, Skyworks (SiLabs), Infineon, onsemi, and Toshiba.