New Industry Products

Photovoltaic Couplers in SO6 Packages have 3750Vrms Isolation

August 27, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced the launch of two new photovoltaic couplers housed in small-size SO6 packages: the TLP3905 and TLP3906. The new photocouplers are designed for use in measuring instruments or as MOSFET gate drivers for the replacement of mechanical relays. While maintaining the fundamental performance of Toshiba's existing photovoltaic couplers (TLP190B and TLP191B), the TLP3905 and TLP3906 expand application possibilities by increasing the maximum operating temperature to 125 degrees C (max) and increasing the isolation voltage by 50 percent to 3750Vrms (min).

The TLP3906 integrates a control circuit for releasing the MOSFET gate charge, providing a turn-off speed of 0.3ms - approximately one third of TLP3905. TLP3906 also offers a minimum LED trigger current IFT (max) of 3mA to provide low power dissipation of LED current. Features include: Open voltage: 7 V (min); Short current: 12 μA (min); Isolation voltage: 3750 Vrms (min); and Safety standards: UL (approved), cUL (approved).

Photovoltaic couplers can be used to create a MOSFET gate driver without using an external secondary-side power supply. The structure of a photovoltaic coupler is a photorelay without a MOSFET chip. Users can create an isolated relay by combining the photovoltaic coupler with an external MOSFET of their choice. This combination makes it possible to realize larger voltages and currents for solutions that are not covered under the existing photorelay line-up. The new photocouplers consist of an infrared light emitting diode optically coupled to a photodiode array. The photodiodes are connected in series, making the TLP3905 and TLP3906 suitable for MOS gate drive applications.

Toshiba's new photovoltaic couplers are available now. Budgetary pricing is $0.78 for the TLP3905 in sample size volume and $0.82 for the TLP3906 in sample size volume.