General description
The PCA9745B is a daisy-chain SPI-compatible 4-wire serial bus controlled 16-channel
constant current LED driver optimized for dimming and blinking 57 mA
Red/Green/Blue/Amber (RGBA) LEDs in amusement products. Each LED output has its
own 8-bit resolution (256 steps) fixed frequency individual PWM controller that operates at
31.25 kHz with a duty cycle that is adjustable from 0 % to 100 % to allow the LED to be
set to a specific brightness value. An additional 8-bit resolution (256 steps) group PWM
controller has both a fixed frequency of 122 Hz and an adjustable frequency between
15 Hz to once every 16.8 seconds with a duty cycle that is adjustable from 0 % to 99.6 %
that is used to either dim or blink all LEDs with the same value.
Each LED output can be off, on (no PWM control), set at its individual PWM controller
value or at both individual and group PWM controller values. The PCA9745B operates
with a supply voltage range of 3 V to 5.5 V and the constant current sink LED outputs
allow up to 20 V for the LED supply. The output peak current is adjustable with an 8-bit
linear DAC from 225 A to 57 mA.
Gradation control for all current sources is achieved via the 4-wire serial bus interface and
allows user to ramp current automatically without MCU intervention. 8-bit DACs are
available to adjust brightness levels for each LED current source. There are four
selectable gradation control groups and each group has independently four registers to
control ramp-up and ramp-down rate, step time, hold ON/OFF time and final hold ON
output current. Two gradation operation modes are available for each group, one is single
shot mode (output pattern once) and the other is continuous mode (output pattern repeat).
Each channel can be set to either gradation mode or normal mode and assigned to any
one of these four gradation control groups.
This device has built-in open, short load and overtemperature detection circuitry. The error
information from the corresponding register can be read via the 4-wire serial bus.
Additionally, a thermal shutdown feature protects the device when internal junction
temperature exceeds the limit allowed for the process.
The PCA9745B device is designed to use 4-wire read/write serial bus with higher data
clock frequency (up to 25 MHz).
The active LOW output enable input pin (OE) blinks all the LED outputs and can be used
to externally PWM the outputs, which is useful when multiple devices need to be dimmed
or blinked together without using software control.

Features and benefits
 16 LED drivers. Each output programmable at:
 Off
 On
 Programmable LED brightness
 Programmable group dimming/blinking mixed with individual LED brightness
 Programmable LED output delay to reduce EMI and surge currents
 Gradation control for all channels
 Each channel can assign to one of four gradation control groups
 Programmable gradation time and rate for ramp-up and/or ramp-down operations
 Programmable step time (6-bit) from 0.5 ms (minimum) to 512 ms (maximum)
 Programmable hold-on time after ramp-up and hold-off time after ramp-down (3-bit)
from 0 s to 6 s
 Programmable final ramp-up and hold-on current
 Programmable brightness current output adjustment, either linear or exponential
curve
 16 constant current output channels can sink up to 57 mA, tolerate up to 20 V when
OFF
 Output current adjusted through an external resistor (Rext input)
 Output current accuracy
 4 % between output channels
 6 % between PCA9745B devices
 Open/short load/overtemperature detection mode to detect individual LED errors (Rext
< 3 kΩ)
 4-wire serial bus interface with 25 MHz data clock rate
 256-step (8-bit) linear programmable brightness per LED output varying from fully off
(default) to maximum brightness fully ON using a 31.25 kHz PWM signal
 256-step group brightness control allows general dimming (using a 122 Hz PWM
signal) from fully off to maximum brightness (default)
 256-step group blinking with frequency programmable from 15 Hz to 16.8 s and duty
cycle from 0 % to 99.6 %
 Active LOW Output Enable (OE) input pin allows for hardware blinking and dimming of
the LEDs
 8 MHz internal oscillator requires no external components
 Internal power-on reset
 Noise filter on SDI/SCLK inputs
 No glitch on LEDn outputs on power-up
 Low standby current
 Operating power supply voltage (VDD) range of 3 V to 5.5 V
 5.5 V tolerant inputs on non-LED pins
 40 C to +105 C operation
 ESD protection exceeds 4 kV HBM per JESD22-A114
 Latch-up testing is done to JEDEC Standard JESD78 which exceeds 100 mA
 Packages offered: HTSSOP28