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Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface

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TI Designs provide the foundation that you need • High Voltage RS-232 Isolation
including methodology, testing and design files to • Bit Rates Up to 1 Mbps
quickly evaluate and customize the system. TI Designs
help you accelerate your time to market. • 2-kV Operating Isolation Boundary
• Integrated Power Harvesting for Isolation and RS-
Design Resources 232 Transceiver
• Operates with 5-V to 12-V RS-232 drivers
TIDA-00163 Tool Folder Containing Design Files
ISO7421 Product Folder Featured Applications
TRS3232 Product Folder
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Isolated UART to RS-232

Devices
ISO7421 PORT
TRS3232 GND
TPS76333
HV Boundary

VCC
1

D1
2

ISO C2
7

D3
3

VCC * U1 C3 C1
8

*
U3
RXD
4

C6
3

U2 * C4
9

C8
TXD
2

C5

GND
1

C7

Texas Instruments - Bart Basile

An IMPORTANT NOTICE at the end of this TI reference design addresses authorized use, intellectual property matters and other
important disclaimers and information.

WEBBENCH is a registered trademark of Texas Instruments.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

TIDU298 – May 2014 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface 1

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System Description www.ti.com

1 System Description
Many sensing applications are designed around low power microcontroller units (MCUs), which do not
require isolated power supply designs. In order to save costs, many systems use capacitive-drop power
supplies as opposed to transformer-based designs. Using capacitive-drop power designs puts a sensing
solution at a very high voltage in relation to a potentially connected host computer. The high voltage
creates the need for an isolation boundary.
The RS-232 interface from a host computer is still very popular in the industrial space due to the robust
nature of the interface and low cost. However, to facilitate proper RS-232 translation to an embedded
system requires an intermediate-level shifting stage. The CMOS TTL voltages are typically in the 3.3-V to
5-V range, while the RS-232 can be near 12 V. Powering the translation on the RS-232 side of the
isolation boundary typically requires addition of an isolation power supply to RS-232 interface. The added
power supply means unwanted cost to the system. By harvesting power from the RS-232 protocol itself, a
fully-isolated, self-powered converter can be implemented.
The TI portfolio offers devices in a broad range of products. Most notably for this industrial design, TI
offers products in isolation, interface charge pumps, and power management. By choosing the correct
combination of products, a system can be designed to meet the requirements of these isolated industrial
interfaces.

2 Design Features

2.1 Power Harvesting

In order to power the data terminal equipment (DTE) side of the isolation boundary and the RS-232
charge pump, there are two choices. The interface can either implement an isolated power supply or
harvest power from the RS-232 line. Integrating a power supply adds cost and complexity to the system,
which is difficult to justify in low-cost sensing applications.
To implement the second option of harvesting power from the RS-232 port itself, this design utilizes the
flow control lines that are ignored in most embedded applications. The RS-232 specification (when
properly implemented on a host computer or adapter cable) keeps the RTS and DTR lines high when the
port is active. As long as the host has the COM port open, these two lines will have voltage on them. This
voltage can vary from 5 V to 12 V, depending on the driver implementation. 5 V to 12 V is sufficient for the
usage needed in this design.
The voltage is put through a diode arrangement to block signals from entering back into the pins. The
voltage goes through a capacitor to store energy. Then the capacitor release this energy when the barrier
and charge pump pull more current than is instantaneously allowed. A simple low dropout (LDO) is
sufficient to bring the line voltage down to a working voltage of 3.3 V for the charge pump and isolation
device.
The downside of this design is that the total current available to the devices on the RS-232 side of the
boundary are limited to only a few mA (~5), largely depending on what type of driver is available on the
DTE side of the RS-232 connection. The following segments will discuss designing the remainder of the
system to account for the driver type.

2 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface TIDU298 – May 2014

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www.ti.com Design Features

2.2 Isolation Boundary

This design uses capacitive galvanic isolation, which has an inherent life span advantage over an opto-
isolator. Industrial devices are typically pressed into service for much longer periods of time than
consumer electronics. Therefore, maintenance of effective isolation over a period of 15+ years is
important.
The TI ISO7421 device is a simple dual channel isolator which only draws ~4 mA. The TI ISO7421 device
is capable of operating at 3.3 V or 5 V, enabling a wide range of devices to be connected to the DCE side
of the interface. The ISO7421 device can simply be inserted into a UART signal path, with the appropriate
power supplies on each side to enable operation. The ISO7421 device also maintains 2.5 kV of isolation
and 4-kV peak in order to meet UL certification levels.
It is important to remember during layout that the traces with high voltage differentials should be kept as
far away from each other as possible. Therefore, no signals or ground pours should be placed under the
device. All traces should come directly into the device pads. Please see the reference design layout in
Section 7.

2.3 RS-232 Charge Pump

To properly interface with the RS-232 standard, a voltage translation system is required to go from the
3.3-V domain on the isolated side of the interface and from the 12 V on the port itself. To facilitate the
translation, the design uses a TPS3232 device. The TPS3232 device is capable of driving the higher
voltage signals on the RS-232 port from only 3.3-V VCC via a charge pump system.

3 Block Diagram

Power Harvesting
RTS/DTR

VCC RS-232 Interface RS-232 Host PC

TX/RX
RS-232 Line
MCU UART Isolation Barrier UART
Driver

Figure 1. System Block Diagram

TIDU298 – May 2014 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface 3

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Test Setup and Results www.ti.com

4 Test Setup and Results

4.1 Power Supply Test

To verify the power harvesting design, the board was connected to several off-the-shelf USB to RS-232
converters. Each of these converters can have a different driver device to generate the RS-232 compliant
signals, which results in various TTL voltage levels. In testing, each converter had its TTL level measured.
This design uses a 5-V and a 12-V model.
Once connected to the DUT and the USB port of a computer, the COM port must be opened in software in
order to enable the RTS and DTR lines of the RS-232 port. This design uses Putty, a popular terminal
emulation application. At this point, Putty is only used to open the port, not communicate any data. For
each of the converters used, the GND and VCC pins on the board were measured with a multimeter,
reading the expected 3.3 V each time.

4.2 Hardware Loopback Test

To determine functional operation, a jumper was placed between the RXD and TXD pins on the isolated
input headers. Using the jumper results in any character being transmitted to immediately echo back. To
power this side of the isolator, a second EVM is used that is capable of producing both 3.3 V and 5 V, in
order to evaluate usage for diverse host processors. The connection setup is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Hardware Loopback

4 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface TIDU298 – May 2014

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www.ti.com Test Setup and Results

The port was reopened in Putty using the standard port settings (9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no
parity, and no flow control) that interacts with embedded system UART protocols well. Via the now open
terminal session, a test string was repeatedly sent. On a correct echo, the terminal would read exactly
what was sent out on the line. To help observe for errors, the window was sized to easily show a
continuous stream of repeated text. The test results are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Echo Test Output

This test was also repeated with a data rate of 1 Mbaud, and with a 5-V supply on the input connection
with no issues. The tests show that from the isolation boundaries' standpoint, the communication remains
robust across different host designs.

4.3 Software Connection

To evaluate integration into a full system, the reference design was connected to a TI EVM430-F6779 e-
metering EVM. The EVM is powered by a nonisolated capacitive-drop power supply. The EVM has
headers for UART communication and power. The EVM comes with software that enables the EVM to
communicate with a PC via a serial port. The EVM430-F6779's communication and power features make
the EVM a perfect test bed for this isolated reference design.
The EVM was connected as shown in Figure 4. The EVM disconnects the onboard isolated UART and
replaces the UART with the daughter board. Once connected, the EVM was able to be used as described
in Implementation of a Three-Phase Electronic Watt-Hour Meter Using the MSP430F677x, literature
number SLAA577.

Figure 4. E-Meter EVM Connection

TIDU298 – May 2014 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface 5

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Schematics www.ti.com

5 Schematics
To download the Schematics, see the design files at TIDA-00163.
TPS76333DBVT
+5..12V
1N4148 PORT_RTS
NC/FB
4 D1
C1 G2
GND 2 1N4148 PORT_DTR 5 9
47u D3 PORT_DTR 4 8
VCC

3 PORT_TX 3 7 PORT_RTS
EN
PORT_RX 2 6
5
OUT IN
1 C2 GND 1

VCC
G1
1u RS1
1 JP2 GND
U3 2
GND GND

GND

U1

VCC
U2

VCC
C4
1
VCC1 VCC2
8 C8 0.1u 2 V+ VCC
16
4 VCC_IN GND 6
V- GND
15 0.1u
3 RXD_IN 2
OUTA INA
7 C7 0.1u
2 TXD_IN 12 13 PORT_TX
ROUT1 RIN1
1 GND_IN 3 6 11 14 PORT_RX GND
INB OUTB DIN1 DOUT1
JP1
4 5 9 8
GND1 GND2 ROUT2 RIN2
C3 10
DIN2 DOUT2
7

0.1u 1
C1+ C2+
4
ISO7421D C6 3
C1- C2- 5 C5

GND 0.1u 0.1u

TRS3232EQPWRQ1
Figure 5. Schematic

6 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface TIDU298 – May 2014

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www.ti.com Bill of Materials

6 Bill of Materials
To download the bill of materials (BOM), see the design files at www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00163. Table 1
shows the BOM for this design.

Table 1. Bill of Materials

DESIGNATOR QUANTITY VALUE DESCRIPTION PACKAGEREFERENCE PARTNUMBER DISTRIBUTOR
RS1 1 SUB-D F09VP A32119-ND Digi-Key
JP4 1 JUMPER JP1 609-4434-ND Digi-Key
JP2 1 JUMPER JP2Q 609-3201-ND Digi-Key
JP1 1 JUMPER JP4 609-3319-ND Digi-Key
JP5 1 JUMPER JP4Q 609-3203-ND Digi-Key
C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, 6 0.1u CAPACITOR, European C0805K 445-5956-1-ND Digi-Key
C9 symbol
D1, D2, D3 3 1N4148 DIODE SOD323 1N4148WSFSCT- Digi-Key
ND
R1, R2, R3 3 1k RESISTOR, European R0603 P1.0KGCT-ND Digi-Key
symbol
C3 1 1u CAPACITOR, European C0805K 445-5956-1-ND Digi-Key
symbol
C1, C2 2 47u CAPACITOR, European C1206K 445-8047-1-ND Digi-Key
symbol
U1 1 ISO7421D Low-Power Dual Digital SOIC127P600X175-8N 296-25187-5-ND Digi-Key
Isolators
U5 1 TPS76333DBVT Low Power 150mA Low SOT95P280X145-5N 296-11021-1-ND Digi-Key
Dropout Linear
Regulator
U2 1 TRS3232EQPWRQ1 RS-232 LINE SOP65P640X120-16N 296-24863-1-ND Digi-Key
DRIVER/RECEIVER

TIDU298 – May 2014 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface 7

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Layer Plots www.ti.com

7 Layer Plots
To download the layer plots, see the design files at www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00163. Figure 6 shows the layer
plot for this design.

Isolated UART to RS-232

Devices
ISO7421 PORT
TRS3232 GND
TPS76333 HV Boundary
VCC

6
D1

2
ISO C2

7
D3

3
VCC * U1 C3 C1

8
*
U3
RXD

4
C6
3

U2 * C4

9
C8
TXD
2

5
C5

GND
1

C7

Texas Instruments - Bart Basile

Figure 6. Layer Plot

8 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface TIDU298 – May 2014

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www.ti.com Altium Project

8 Altium Project
To download the Altium files, see the design files at www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00163.

9 Gerber Files
To download the Gerber files, see the design files at www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00163.

10 Software Files
To download the software files, see the design files at www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00163.

11 About the Author

BART BASILE is a systems and applications engineer in the Texas Instruments Smart Grid Solutions
Team, focusing on the e-metering and grid infrastructure industries. Bart works across multiple product
families and technologies to leverage the best solutions possible for system level application design. Bart
received his Bachelors of Science in Electronic Engineering from Texas A&M University.

TIDU298 – May 2014 Self-Powered Isolated RS-232 to UART Interface 9

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