LED driver chips
After looking at the many options for driving LED displays (5x7/8x8 matrix, 7/14/16/25 segment, common anode/cathode, single/bi-color/RGB), I put together this list of commonly used LED driver chips, to have a better picture of possible combinations, and use as reference for future projects.
The bottom 5 rows are not actually LED drivers, just substitutes (require current limiting resistors).
Some of the driver chips (e.g. "8x8" in the "channels" column) provide internal multiplexing, being designed specifically for driving array of LEDs. The others, where "channels" is just one number, would require extra circuitry (e.g. transistors) and logic (micro controller code) for multiplexing.
The "CA" column indicates "common anode", "CC" stands for common cathode.
There seem to be more options for driving common anode LED displays, probably because sinking current (by the chips' LED outputs) allows for higher currents and also for using a separate power source (usually higher voltage) for the LEDs.
The bottom 5 rows are not actually LED drivers, just substitutes (require current limiting resistors).
Some of the driver chips (e.g. "8x8" in the "channels" column) provide internal multiplexing, being designed specifically for driving array of LEDs. The others, where "channels" is just one number, would require extra circuitry (e.g. transistors) and logic (micro controller code) for multiplexing.
The "CA" column indicates "common anode", "CC" stands for common cathode.
There seem to be more options for driving common anode LED displays, probably because sinking current (by the chips' LED outputs) allows for higher currents and also for using a separate power source (usually higher voltage) for the LEDs.
[original story: Wise time with Arduino]