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New Tech Tuesdays

Join Rudy Ramos for a weekly look at all things interesting, new, and noteworthy for design engineers.

Electronic design engineers frequently encounter a multitude of challenges when designing today’s cutting-edge products and systems. Achieving safety, robustness, and flexibility in these designs can feel like navigating a minefield of complex solutions. Many engineers resort to using multiple components to tackle these issues. While this might work in some cases, it often leads to cumbersome designs that are hard to manage and optimize. This complexity not only complicates the design process but can also introduce new points of failure. In this week’s New Tech Tuesday, we dig into some of these complexities and take a look at a design solution that employs galvanic isolation.

The Challenges of Complex Designs

In industries such as automotive, healthcare, and industrial automation, safety is paramount. Engineers must comply with strict regulations while designing systems that can withstand various environmental factors. Utilizing too many different components can complicate safety verification and lead to extensive testing and documentation requirements. Each additional component adds layers of complexity, potentially leading to vulnerabilities in the system.

Ensuring Robustness

Robustness is always a key concern for today’s designs. Engineers need to create devices that can operate under harsh conditions, including extreme temperatures, vibrations, and electrical noise. Traditional solutions often require intricate designs with numerous components, each susceptible to failure. This fragmentation increases the likelihood of system failure, further complicating the design and testing phases.

Maintaining Flexibility

Design flexibility is another challenge often faced by engineers. Ensuring design flexibility is essential for adapting to changing project requirements or evolving technology standards. Designs that rely on multiple components can be rigid, making it difficult to incorporate updates or changes later on. This inflexibility not only stifles innovation but can also lead to costly redesigns that eat into project timelines and budgets.

The Newest Products for Your Newest Designs^®

This week’s New Tech Tuesday highlights the MAX22666 from Analog Devices. The MAX22666 represents a unified solution for engineers to tackle tough design challenges in safety, durability, and flexibility.

The MAX22666 is a six-channel, fast, low-power, digital galvanic isolator with an isolation rating of 5kV_RMS. The device is designed for signal conditioning and interfacing between sensors and a microcontroller’s isolated digital I/O signals (Figure 1). The wide supply voltage range between V_DDA and V_DDB allows the MAX22666 to also be used for level-shifting translation in addition to isolation. The device’s six unidirectional channels operate independently with guaranteed data rates from DC to 200Mbps, and each channel’s push-pull output driver eliminates the need for pullup resistors. The MAX22666 is AEC-Q100 qualified with a temperature rating of -40°C to +125°C, making it ideal for automotive and industrial applications.

Figure 1: Simplified application diagram of the MAX2266x interfacing with a microcontroller and a digital I/O module. (Source: Analog Devices)

The MAX22666 offers a comprehensive solution to today’s design challenges and is available to order from Mouser Electronics. This integrated device combines multiple functionalities into a single chip, significantly reducing the number of components needed in a design. By consolidating functions such as signal conditioning and protection, the MAX22666 minimizes potential failure points, thus enhancing overall safety and reliability. Its advanced features, including fault detection and over-voltage protection, enable engineers to meet stringent safety standards with greater ease.

Tuesday’s Takeaway

Overcoming electronic design hurdles can be a daunting task, but the Analog Devices MAX22666 stands out as a powerful ally for design engineers. By simplifying complex designs and addressing common challenges, this integrated device not only enhances the design process but also paves the way for innovative solutions. With the MAX22666, engineers can focus on what truly matters—creating reliable, high-performance systems that meet the demands of today and tomorrow.