GPIO expanders with Agile I/O reduce bill of materials

GPIO expanders with Agile I/O reduce bill of materials - A new family of 8-bit and 16-bit GPIO devices from NXP Semi...

A new family of 8-bit and 16-bit GPIO devices from NXP Semiconductors features “Agile I/O” – an innovative option integrating the most commonly needed functions in embedded systems. The GPIOs expand the two wires of the I2C-bus into 8 or 16 general-purpose I/O pins that can interface to keyboards, switches, LEDs, displays, or even stepping motors, saving valuable pins on the microprocessor or custom ASIC. The Agile I/O GPIO expanders further reduce the bill of materials (BoM) by eliminating external components and minimizing the PCB space required, and simplify firmware development by capturing real-time events and eliminating software latencies, thus improving reliability. The 16 new devices include eight industry-standard I2C GPIO expanders, as well as eight devices with additional Agile I/O functions. Providing a wide voltage range including level-shifting capabilities ...

Full article: http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4398986/GPI...