A tale of three bidirectional level shifters #Design #EE
Level shifters, voltage translators: whatever you call them, these devices are very handy when interfacing 5V and 3.3V logic for devices that aren’t 5V-tolerant. Steve on the Big Mess o’ Wires blog writes:
The 74LVC244 has long been my go-to solution for unidirectional 5V to 3.3V level shifting, and for 3.3V to 5V I’ll typically do nothing, since the 5V inputs generally work OK without shifting. But sometimes you need bidirectional level shifting with automatic direction sensing, and you may also want to step up those 3.3V signals to a full 5V.
Enter three solutions from Texas Instruments: TXB0104, TXS0104, and TXS0108. These three chips all provide 4 or 8 channels of bidirectional level shifting with auto direction sensing, and at first glance they all seem very similar. But as I recently discovered, under the hood, you’ll find significant differences in how they work and the types of applications they’re best suited for.
My conclusion? When selecting parts, read the datasheet, the whole datasheet. All three of these chips have nearly identical titles and descriptions on page 1, and it’s only after digging further down that their significant differences become apparent.
Read all the details and the best chips for different applications in the post here.
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