What’s Inside a USB Isolator?

Decapping a computer chip is a toxic, non-trivial task. However what’s revealed underneath the plastic capping material will amaze you. Especially the sizes of the chips. We’re talking millimeters, sometimes fractions of a millimeter on a side for very simple functions. In this example, a USB isolator chip from Analog Devices is decapped and examined under a microscope to trace out the circuitry. Very interesting stuff and reminds me a lot of the iPhone tear-downs that include an analysis of the A series processor chip Apple installs in each one. Always a lot of information to be gleaned from the exposed circuits, that’s for sure.