This 8-bit I/O expander for the two-line bidirectional bus (I²C) is designed for 2.3-V to 5.5-V V_CC operation. It provides general-purpose remote I/O expansion for most microcontroller families via the I²C interface [serial clock (SCL), serial data (SDA)].

The PCA9554A consists of one 8-bit Configuration (input or output selection), Input, Output, and Polarity Inversion (active high or active low) registers. At power on, the I/Os are configured as inputs with a weak pullup to V_CC. However, the system master can enable the I/Os as either inputs or outputs by writing to the I/O configuration bits. The data for each input or output is kept in the corresponding Input or Output register. The polarity of the Input Port register can be inverted with the Polarity Inversion register. All registers can be read by the system master.

The system master can reset the PCA9554A in the event of a timeout or other improper operation by utilizing the power-on reset feature, which puts the registers in their default state and initializes the I²C/SMBus state machine.

The PCA9554A open-drain interrupt (INT) output is activated when any input state differs from its corresponding Input Port register state and is used to indicate to the system master that an input state has changed.

INT can be connected to the interrupt input of a microcontroller. By sending an interrupt signal on this line, the remote I/O can inform the microcontroller if there is incoming data on its ports without having to communicate via the I²C bus. Thus, the PCA9554A can remain a simple slave device.

The device's outputs (latched) have high-current drive capability for directly driving LEDs and low current consumption.

Three hardware pins (A0, A1, and A2) are used to program and vary the fixed I²C address and allow up to eight devices to share the same I²C bus or SMBus.

The PCA9554A is pin-to-pin and I²C address compatible with the PCF8574A. However, software changes are required, due to the enhancements in the PCA9554A over the PCF8574A.

The PCA9554A and PCA9554 are identical except for their fixed I²C address. This allows for up to 16 of these devices (8 of each) on the same I²C/SMBus.