December 27, 2024 /SemiMedia/ — Nexperia recently 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.

Devices in Nexperia’s NXU family have been designed to combine the parametric performance capabilities of direction-controlled translation devices (i.e., high data rate, high drive strength, and glitch free power sequencing) with the lower pin-out and size advantages of auto-direction devices. The NXU translator devices consume significantly less power (>2x reduction) compared to auto-direction devices (for comparable bit counts). They also have a wider supply voltage range (0.9 V to 5.5 V) making the devices suitable for translating between any of the voltage nodes from 0.9 V up to 5 V. The NXU devices also support faster data rates (up to 250 Mbps) than other voltage translation solutions.

The NXU family of translators complements Nexperia’s existing portfolios of direction-controlled and auto-direction families of level translation devices by providing level translation solutions for applications that require a combination of auto-direction and direction-controlled capabilities. For maximum flexibility, various data-direction and package configurations are provided, while automotive-qualified (AEC-Q100) variants are also available in packages with side-wettable flanks to enable automated optical inspection.

To learn more about Nexperia’s voltage translation solutions visit: www.nexperia.com/voltage_translators.