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Pull Up and Pull Down Resistors

Pull-up resistors are used to ensure a pin is at a high logic level when no input is present. They connect from the power supply to the pin. Pull-down resistors ensure a pin is at a low logic level with no input, connecting from the pin to ground. Typical values are 1-5kΩ for pull-ups and 1-10kΩ for pull-downs. They are commonly used for interfacing switches and sensors to microcontrollers and maintaining known logic levels on I/O pins.

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488 views3 pages

Pull Up and Pull Down Resistors

Pull-up resistors are used to ensure a pin is at a high logic level when no input is present. They connect from the power supply to the pin. Pull-down resistors ensure a pin is at a low logic level with no input, connecting from the pin to ground. Typical values are 1-5kΩ for pull-ups and 1-10kΩ for pull-downs. They are commonly used for interfacing switches and sensors to microcontrollers and maintaining known logic levels on I/O pins.

Uploaded by

Nikola Petkovic
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Pull up resistor / Pull down resistor

Pull-up resistor circuit

What are pull-up resistors?


Pull-up resistors are resistors used in logic circuits to ensure a well-defined logical level at a pin
under all conditions. As a reminder, digital logic circuits have three logic states: high, low and
floating (or high impedance). The high-impedance state occurs when the pin is not pulled to a
high or low logic level, but is left floating instead. A good illustration of this is an unconnected
input pin of a microcontroller. It is neither in a high or low logic state, and a microcontroller
might unpredictably interpret the input value as either a logical high or logical low. Pull-up
resistors are used to solve the dilemma for the microcontroller by pulling the value to a logical
high state, as seen in the figure. If there werent for the pull-up resistor, the MCUs input would
be floating when the switch is open and brought down only when the switch is closed.
Pull-up resistors are not a special kind of resistors; they are simple fixed-value resistors
connected between the voltage supply (usually +5V) and the appropriate pin, which results in
defining the input or output voltage in the absence of a driving signal. A typical pull-up resistor
value is 4.7k, but can vary depending on the application, as will be discussed later in this
article.

Pull-up resistor definition


Pull-up resistors are resistors which are used to ensure that a wire is pulled to a high logical level
in the absence of an input signal.

What are pull-down resistors?

Pull-down resistor
Pull-down resistors work in the same manner as pull-up resistors, except that they pull the pin to
a logical low value. They are connected between ground and the appropriate pin on a device. An
example of a pull-down resistor in a digital circuit can be seen in the figure. A pushbutton switch
is connected between the supply voltage and a microcontroller pin. In such a circuit, when the
switch is closed, the micro-controller input is at a logical high value, but when the switch is
open, the pull-down resistor pulls the input voltage down to ground (logical zero value),
preventing an undefined state at the input. The pull-down resistor must have a larger resistance
than the impedance of the logic circuit, or else it might be able to pull the voltage down by too
much and the input voltage at the pin would remain at a constant logical low value regardless
of the switch position.

Pull-up resistor value


The appropriate value for the pull-up resistor is limited by two factors. The first factor is power
dissipation. If the resistance value is too low, a high current will flow through the pull-up

resistor, heating the device and using up an unnecessary amount of power when the switch is
closed. This condition is called a strong pull-up and is avoided when low power consumption is a
requirement. The second factor is the pin voltage when the switch is open. If the pull-up
resistance value is too high, combined with a large leakage current of the input pin, the input
voltage can become insufficient when the switch is open. This condition is called having a weak
pull-up. The actual value of the pull-ups resistance depends on the impedance of the input pin,
which is closely related to the pins leakage current.
A rule of thumb is to use a resistor that is at least 10 times smaller than the value of the input pin
impedance. In bipolar logic families which operate at operating at 5V, the typical pull-up resistor
value is 1-5 k. For switch and resistive sensor applications, the typical pull-up resistor value is
1-10 k. If in doubt, a good starting point when using a switch is 4.7 k. Some digital circuits,
such as CMOS families, have a small input leakage current, allowing much higher resistance
values, from around 10k up to 1M. The disadvantage when using a larger resistance value is
that the input pin responses to voltage changes slower. This is the result of the coupling between
the pull-up resistor and the line capacitance of the wire which forms an RC circuit. The larger the
product of R and C, the more time is needed for the capacitance to charge and discharge, and
consequently the slower the circuit. In high-speed circuits, a large pull-up resistor can sometimes
limit the speed at which the pin can reliably change state.

Typical applications for pull-up and pull-down resistors


Pull-up and pull-down resistors are often used when interfacing a switch or some other input
with a microcontroller or other digital gates. Most microcontrollers have in-built programmable
pull up/down resistors so fewer external components are needed. It is possible to interface a
switch with such microcontrollers directly. Pull-up resistors are in general used more often than
pull-down resistors, although some microcontroller families have both pull-up and pull-downs
available.
They are often used in analog to digital converters to provide a controlled current flow into a
resistive sensor.
Another application is the I2C protocol bus, where pull-up resistors are used to enable a single
pin to act as an input or an output. When not connected to a bus, the pin floats in a highimpedance state.
Pull-down resistors are also used on outputs to provide a known output impedance.

Read more http://www.resistorguide.com/pull-up-resistor_pull-down-resistor/

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