Squeezing μAs out of your mixed-voltage interface

摘要

Many ASICs, advanced microcontrollers, and digital signal processors are produced with 90-nm wafer fab technology and are powered by a 1.2-V supply. The trend is to go smaller in geometry and lower in V_(CC) to save power while maintaining or increasing speed performance. However, many devices, particularly peripherals (such as LCD modules and some memory modules), are still powered at high voltages in systems with processors running at 1.2 V. To facilitate communication among these devices with different V_(CC) voltages, several methods are commonly used.