Frequently Asked Question

What regulatory standards address isolation products?

There are a wide variety of safety standards related to isolation at both the system and component levels, for various geographic regions, and for various applications. Shown below is a table summarizing commonly-used standards for the U.S., Europe, and International geographic regions.

Application U.S. Europe International
Industrial UL 508 EN 50178 IEC 604
Information Technology UL 1950 EN 60950 IEC 950
Medical UL 2601-1 EN 60601 IEC 601
Measurement and Control UL 3111 EN 61010-1 IEC 1010-1
Telecom UL 1459 EN 60950 IEC 950
Household UL 8730-1 EN 60065 IEC 65

Table 1. Application-Level Standards

Component U.S. Canada Germany/Europe International
Isolator UL 1577 Component Acceptance
Notice #5
DIN EN60747-5-2
DIN V VDE V 0884-10
IEC 747-5

Table 2. Component-Level Standards

The standards that apply directly to isolation components are those of Table 2. The standards of Table 1 apply to applications that use isolation components. The designer of such an application must assure that the appropriate isolation component is selected such that compliance with the relevant application-level standard is ensured. However, the application-level standard is not directly applicable to the isolation component. Only the standards of Table 2 are imposed directly at the component level.