32 taps, 50kΩ, non-volatile — what that means on the bench
The MAX5474EKA+T is a single-channel digital potentiometer with a linear taper, 32 wiper taps, and 50kΩ end-to-end resistance — a combination that gives you 31 equal resistor steps of about 1.6kΩ each. The wiper setting is stored in non-volatile memory, so on power-up the pot comes back to where you left it — no need for the microcontroller to re-load a calibration value after every brownout.
Up/Down interface — no I2C bus required
Instead of a serial bus, the MAX5474EKA+T uses a three-wire Up/Down (U/D, CS) interface — pull CS low, toggle U/D to step the wiper up or down one tap per pulse. This is handy when your microcontroller has no spare I2C or SPI pins, or when you want to run the pot from a simple GPIO pair and a timer interrupt. The 32-tap resolution means 31 discrete steps — coarse enough for trimming an op-amp offset or setting a voltage divider ratio, but not fine enough for precision audio volume control where you'd want 128 or 256 taps.
SOT-23-8 — can I swap it on site?
The SOT-23-8 package is small — about 2.9 mm × 1.6 mm — but the leads are on a 0.65 mm pitch, which is hand-solderable with a fine tip and steady hands. No lab bench needed for a field swap if you have a temperature-controlled iron and magnification — just watch the orientation dot on pin 1.
Temperature stability and wiper resistance
The temperature coefficient is 35 ppm/°C typical — for a 50kΩ pot, that's about 1.75 Ω per °C drift, which is stable enough for most bias and trim circuits. Wiper resistance is 600 Ω typical — at the low end of the pot (tap 0), this resistance is in series with the bottom leg of the divider, so factor it into your divider ratio calculation if you're working near ground.
ROHS3 compliant, so no exemption paperwork needed for EU-bound shipments.