74HC595 Shift Register 3PCS

Did you just run out of digital pins? Looking for a new microcontroller with a lot of digital pins might be useful, but it could be bulky. This component could be a solution to your digital pin problems.

It is a 74HC595 shift register chip. It is a DIP type chip that enables you to use them on breadboards and perf boards. It consists of an 8-bit/1 byte D-type latch with three-state parallel outputs. This chip could accept serial data and provide serial output. It also provides parallel data to the 8-bit latch. The shift register and latch have independent clock inputs and an asynchronous reset for the shift register.  

In short, this serves as a multiplexer. Note that the MCU you are using sends signals very fast to see with our eyes. But this chip is limited to digital outputs only. 

It could be integrated into your MCU using three pins for the SPI interface to three digital pins of your MCU, with the addition of power supply pins.

It is suitable for projects like portraying shapes in an array of LEDs.

This device uses 2V to 6V to operate. It has a low input current of 1µA and an output of up to 20mA to each digital output, making it suitable for driving LEDs.