2-Wire Interfaced, 2.7V to 5.5V LED Display Driver with I/O Expander and Key Scan The MAX6955 is a compact display driver that interfaces microprocessors to a mix of 7-segment, 14-segment, and 16-segment LED displays through an I2C-compatible 2-wire serial interface. The MAX6955 drives up to 16 digits 7-segment, 8 digits 14-segment, 8 digits 16-segment, or 128 discrete LEDs, while functioning from a supply voltage as low as 2.7V. The driver includes five I/O expander or general-purpose I/O (GPIO) lines, some or all of which can be configured as a key-switch reader. The key-switch reader automatically scans and debounces a matrix of up to 32 switches.
“MAX6955 is an interesting LED driver chip. It is the primordial charlieplexing device, being the materialization of a technique invented by Charlie Allen of Maxim Integrated. Without understanding how charelieplexing works, it is actually counter-intuitive to wire multiple (up to …