The device provides an option to either use SMBus programmed registers (software) to control the outputs or by using the hardware OE# pins. When using software to control the outputs, the hardware OE# pins can be left floating as each of these pins have a pulldown to ground. Refer to Table 8-2 and Register Maps for more information on programming the register.

When the user wants to control the outputs with the hardware OE# pins, they can connect these pins to a GPIO controller and set the outputs to HIGH/LOW (see Table 5-1). Registers OECR1 (Table 8-7) and OECR2 (Table 8-8) show the OUT_EN_CLK3 to OUT_EN_CLK0 bits used to control the outputs. These register bits are set to 1 by default to ensure that the outputs are "software enabled" and their state is therefore set by hardware OE# pins.