7.8 mA output drive — fan-out and load budget
Each output sinks or sources 7.8 mA, enough to drive a handful of HC-family inputs or a single TTL load, but not enough for a heavily loaded backplane or a bank of LEDs without a buffer. For bus-oriented designs, the 3-state outputs let multiple devices share the same data lines without contention, as long as the enable timing is managed.
The 24-SOIC (7.50 mm width) footprint is a standard body size, so board layout is straightforward and second-sourcing to another 74HC 24-SOIC transceiver is possible if supply tightens.