Data Sheet ADM3260
Rev. D | Page 15 of 19
APPLICATIONS INFORMATION
FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION
The digital isolator block on the ADM3260 interfaces on each
side to a bidirectional I2C signal. Internally, the I2C interface is
split into two unidirectional channels communicating in
opposing directions via a dedicated iCoupler isolation channel
for each. One channel (the bottom channel of each channel pair
shown in Figure 17) senses the voltage state of the Side 1 I2C pin
(SCL1 or SDA1) and transmits its state to its respective Side 2
I2C pin (SCL2 or SDA2).
Both the Side 1 (isolated side) and the Side 2 (primary side) I2C
pins interface to an I2C bus operating in the 3.0 V to 5.5 V range.
A logic low on either pin causes the opposite pin to pull low
enough to comply with the logic low threshold requirements of the
other I2C devices on the bus. To avoid I2C bus contention, input
a low threshold at SDA1 or SCL1 to guarantee at least 50 mV
less than the output low signal at the same pin. This step prevents
an output logic low at Side 1 from transmitting back to Side 2
and pulling down the I2C bus.
Because the Side 2 logic levels or thresholds are standard I2C
values, multiple ADM3260 devices connected to a bus by their
Side 2 pins communicate with each other and with other I2C-
compatible devices. I2C compatibility refers to situations in
which the logic levels of a component do not necessarily meet
the requirements of the I2C specification but still allow the
component to communicate with an I2C-compliant device.
I2C compliance refers to situations in which the logic levels of
a component meet the requirements of the I2C specification.
However, because the Side 1 pin has a modified output level/
input threshold, this side of the ADM3260 communicates only
with devices that conform to the I2C standard. In other words,
Side 2 of the ADM3260 is I2C compliant, whereas Side 1 is only
I2C compatible.
The output logic low levels are independent of the VDDISO and
VDDP voltages. The input logic low threshold at Side 1 is also
independent of VDDISO. However, the input logic low threshold at
Side 2 is at 0.3 VDDP, consistent with I2C requirements. The Side 1
and Side 2 pins have open-collector outputs whose high levels
are set via pull-up resistors to their respective supply voltages.
The dc-to-dc converter section of the ADM3260 works on
principles that are common to most modern power supplies.
It has a split controller architecture with isolated pulse-width
modulation (PWM) feedback. VIN power is supplied to an
oscillating circuit that switches current into a chip-scale air core
transformer. Power transferred to the secondary side is rectified
and regulated to a value between 3.15 V and 5.25 V depending
on the setpoint supplied by an external voltage divider (see
Equation 1). The secondary (VISO) side controller regulates
the output by creating a PWM control signal that is sent to the
primary (VIN) side by a dedicated iCoupler data channel.
The PWM modulates the oscillator circuit to control the power
being sent to the secondary side. Feedback allows for significantly
higher power and efficiency.
(V)1.23
BOTTOM
BOTTOMTOP
R
RR
VISO +
×=
(1)
where:
RTOP is a resistor between VSEL and VISO.
RBOTTOM is a resistor between VSEL and GNDISO.
Because the output voltage is adjusted continuously, there are an
infinite number of operating conditions. This data sheet
addresses three discrete operating conditions in the Specifications
section. Many other combinations of input and output voltage are
possible; Figure 14 depicts the supported voltage combinations
at room temperature. Figure 14 was generated by using a fixed
VISO load and decreasing the input voltage until the PWM was
at 80% duty cycle. Each of the curves represents the minimum
input voltage that is required for operation under this criterion.
For example, if the application requires 30 mA of output current
at 5 V, the minimum input voltage at VIN is 4.25 V. Figure 14
also illustrates that a configuration with VIN = 3.3 V and VISO =
5 V is not recommended. Even at 10 mA of output current, the
PWM cannot maintain less than 80% duty factor, leaving no
margin to support load or temperature variations.
Typically, the dc-to-dc converter section of the ADM3260
dissipates about 17% more power between room temperature
and maximum temperature; therefore, the 20% PWM margin
covers temperature variations.
The isolated converter implements undervoltage lockout (UVLO)
with hysteresis on the input/output pins of the primary and
secondary sides as well as the VIN power input. This feature
ensures that the converter does not go into oscillation due to
noisy input power or slow power-on ramp rates.