The CAT9552 is designed with an internal oscillator and two programmable “on/off” or “blink” rate timers, adjustable from 0.02 to 5.8 seconds. This oscillator and its two timers reduce overall parts count and substantially reduce the I2C bus traffic, which would normally occur if traditional bus expanders were used. An added benefit of the CAT9552 is that I/Os not used for controlling LEDs can be used as general-purpose I/Os (GPIOs).
Pricing for the CAT9552 LED driver/blinker is $1.00 each, in 10,000 piece quantities. Samples are available now. Projected lead-time for production quantities is currently 6 to 8 weeks ARO.