The 10-bit DAC53701 and 8-bit DAC43701 (DACx3701) are a pin-compatible family of buffered voltage-output, smart digital-to-analog converters (DACs). These smart DACs contain nonvolatile memory (NVM), an internal reference, a PMBus-compatible I²C interface, force-sense output, and a general-purpose input. The DACx3701 operate with either an internal reference or with a power supply as the reference, and provide a full-scale output of 1.8 V to 5.5 V.

These devices communicate through an I²C interface, and support I²C standard mode (100 kbps), fast mode (400 kbps), and fast mode plus (1 Mbps). These devices also support specific PMBus commands such as turn on/off, margin high or low, and more. The GPI input can be configured as a power-down trigger, margin-high-low, function trigger, and medical alarm trigger. The DACx3701 also include digital slew rate control, and support basic signal generation such as square, ramp, and sawtooth waveforms. These devices can generate pulse-width modulation (PWM) output with the combination of the triangular or sawtooth waveform and the FB pin. These features enable the DACx3701 to go beyond the limitations of a conventional DAC that depends on a processor to function. Because of processor-less operation and the smart feature set, the DACx3701 are called smart DACs.

The DACx3701 have a power-on-reset (POR) circuit that makes sure all the registers start with default or user-programmed settings using NVM. The DAC output powers on in high-impedance mode (default); this setting can be programmed to 10kΩ-GND using NVM.