Driver chip that supplies a path to Vcc?

Jun 15, 2008 5 Replies

The ULN2003 is great when you want to implement a switch that leads to ground, but I'm looking for a driver chip that provides a path to Vcc.



Anybody know of one? Perhaps something like a PNP version of the ULN2003?


; read, learn. But you probably do not mean Vcc.

Okey dokes so I'm looking for a "high side driver". I need 12 channels. Can anyone suggest a chip?

That got thoroughly borked in the archive.

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you get

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AND, if you use hyphens

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or periods,

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it will be submitted as a PHRASE.

That search is really "noisy," it mostly gives power MOSFET drivers that have one to four channels, and furthermore the circuitry to drive power MOSFET gates is not what you want. You want something that looks like an open collector PNP transistor with emmiter connected to your voltage source, with appropriate driving circuitry so it can be conntrolled from the "low side."

Go to digikey and search for:

Toshiba driver source

This brings up a few 8-channel parts like what you want. You'll have to use two of those to get 12 channels, I'd be very surprised if such a chip is made with more channels. I've seen similar 8-channel parts from other manufacturers (TI, I think), I just can't think how to find them now. I looked for just this thing a few years ago and they were not easy to find, mostly because they're rare relative to all the "high side" MOSFET drivers that everyone makes.

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