It's reported that Catalyst Semiconductor has expanded its recently introduced family of large LED video display drivers with the new CAT4008, an 8-channel, constant-current sink LED driver for billboard, marquee, instrument and other large, general-purpose LED displays.

The CAT4008 joins Catalyst's CAT4016, 16-channel, constant-current LED driver introduced in October 2007.

The CAT4008 LED channels can operate with an output voltage on the LED pins as low as 0.4V (for 2mA to 100mA LED current), to enable more power-efficient designs. The nominal LED current is set by an external resistor. A high-speed, 4-wire serial interface with up to 25MHz clock frequency, controls each of the 8 channels using a shift register and latch configuration. A serial output data pin allows multiple devices to be cascaded and programmed via one serial interface. The CAT4008 features a blanking control pin (BLANK), which can be used to disable all channels independently of the interface. Additionally, on-chip thermal shutdown protection disables the LED outputs if the die temperature exceeds a set limit.

The CAT4008 is available in a 16-lead, 150 mil SOIC package and offers a replacement for popular devices from Macroblock, Toshiba and others.