Next-generation fixed-direction voltage level translators from Nexperia reduce power consumption and pin count

Nexperia released a new family of next-generation fixed-direction voltage level translators ideal for use with some of the most commonly used push-pull data interfaces (including UART, SPI and JTAG protocols) as well as for general purpose input/output (GPIO). The NXU series of 4-bit, 2-bit, and 1-bit dual-supply buffers offer a smaller, higher performance and lower-cost level translation solution that simplifies communication between a host processor and peripheral I/O devices compared to existing designs in a broad range of consumer, industrial, automotive and enterprise applications.

Existing direction-controlled level translators typically require an additional GPIO pin for direction control, a requirement which increases device size while also adding to design complexity because it consumes I/O resources of the host processor. On the other hand, while auto-direction devices do not require a GPIO pin for direction control, they typically cannot provide the level of current drive required by many applications. Furthermore, they can sometimes exhibit non-deterministic I/O behavior resulting from one-shot architectures that can be time-consuming to debug. Another shortcoming of direction-controlled and auto-direction devices is that they typically consume too much power for power sensitive implementations (more info).