Toshiba Expands Quad-Channel Digital Isolator Lineup to Support Lower Power Consumption in Industrial Equipment

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation has added four new products to its DCL34xx0B series of quad-channel digital isolators for industrial equipment. All four, low current consumption of 0.2mA per channel and come in a compact SSOP16 package, while supporting mid-speed communications.

The new additions are the DCL340L0B and DCL340H0B, which use a four-forward, zero-reverse channel configuration, and the DCL342L0B and DCL342H0B, which use a two-forward, two-reverse configuration. In practical terms, forward and reverse channels describe which direction a signal can travel through the isolator, so a device with all forward channels only sends signals one way, while one with both forward and reverse channels can send and receive.

The reason isolators like this matter comes down to a common problem in industrial equipment such as programmable logic controllers, actuators, and inverters: as devices run faster, they generate more electrical noise, which can cause malfunctions or let faults spread between circuits. Digital isolators solve this by electrically separating circuits that operate at different voltage levels, letting signals pass between them without letting noise or faults cross over. That's driving demand for isolation devices that stay reliable in noisy environments, while also shrinking in size and lasting longer as equipment itself becom...