The ADM485 is a differential line transceiver suitable for high speed bidirectional data communication on multipoint bus transmission lines. It is designed for balanced data transmission and complies with both EIA Standards RS-485 and RS-422. The part contains a differential line driver and a differential line receiver. Both the driver and the receiver may be enabled independently. When disabled, the outputs are tristated. The ADM485 operates from a single +5 V power supply. Excessive power dissipation caused by bus contention or by output shorting is prevented by a thermal shutdown circuit. This feature forces the driver output into a high impedance state if during fault conditions a significant temperature increase is detected in the internal driver circuitry. Up to 32 transceivers may be connected simultaneously on a bus, but only one driver should be enabled at any time. It is important, therefore, that the remaining disabled drivers do not load the bus. To ensure this, the ADM485 driver features high output impedance when disabled and also when powered down.