Digital potentiometers – advantages

Digital potentiometers have many significant advantages over mechanical potentiometers. Digital potentiometers are far more reliable than mechanical potentiometers. Digital pots can easily guarantee 50,000 writing cycles, while the mechanical parts rate only a few thousand, and sometimes only a few hundred. Digital pots are insensitive to dust, dirt, and moisture, which can kill a mechanical part if they intrude. They use less space and have better electrical performance because of the reduced parasitics and lower susceptibility to noise. Digital pots can replace mechanical types in virtually every application, thus allowing the designer and the eventual user to enjoy the associated benefits.