Faster control for I2C bus systems

Available now is the world's first parallel to serial interface I2C bus controller to operate at 400kHz and at low voltages of 3.3 to 2.5V.

Available now is the world's first parallel to serial interface I2C bus controller to operate at 400kHz and at low voltages of 3.3 to 2.5V.

The PCA9564 is optimised for interfacing microprocessors, microcontrollers and DSPs with multiple I2C devices or SMBus components.

With the expanded use of I2C as a maintenance and control bus in computing, telecomms and networking systems applications, the higher speed and low voltage of this new chip allows designers to build more flexible, higher performance I2C systems than currently possible.

The I2C bus has become the de-facto industry standard serial bus for control, maintenance and configuration operations in most electronic applications, thanks to the simplicity of the truly plug-and-play two-wire interface and low-cost of implementation resulting from a large installed user base.

The PCA9564 can operate as an I2C master or slave and as a transmitter or receiver, while controlling all of the I2C-bus specific sequences, protocol, arbitration and timing, with no external clock source required.

This device also allows MCUs and MPUs that do not have an integrated I2C port to interface with I2C or SMBus components, or it can provide additional ports where multiple I2C bus ports are needed.

"Procket Networks designed a networking board using a custom ASIC without an I2C port.

Because many of the other components had an I2C port we needed a way to connect them to the ASIC microprocessor 8bit databus.

The new Philips PCA9564 parallel bus to I2C bus controller turned out to be a perfect fit for this application.

It provides the bridge function using only minimal board space and was very easy to program", said Song Yu, Staff Engineer, Procket Networks, a leading IP networking system company in Milpitas, CA.

"I2C /SMBus has become the de facto standard serial bus for maintenance, control and configuration in most electronic platforms ranging from computing applications to networking and communications", said Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, General Manager, Specialty Logic Product Line, Philips Semiconductors.

"With this new PCA9564 I2C bus controller device, we are introducing significant innovation in a mature technology, enabling electronics manufacturers to interface almost any processor or microcontroller with the I2C or SMBus at higher speed and lower voltages than previously possible".

The PCA9564, a key product within Philips broad multimarket portfolio, provides a lower voltage and higher frequency migration path for the widely used PCF8584 bus controller.

The lower voltage range of 2.3 to 3.6V and the high maximum I2C frequency of 400kHz is needed for today's higher performance designs.

As core voltages continue to decrease and as more devices are added to the I2C bus, faster communication speeds are required to ensure the bus does not slow performance by delaying other processor actions.

The PCA9564 offloads much of the interface work from the processor to keep performance levels high.

The lower voltage and expanded frequency range capabilities of the PCA9564 are well suited to the market's expanding use of I2C as a maintenance and control bus within many of today's computing, communication and networking systems.

The new PCA9564 I2C bus controller provides numerous benefits: it adds an I2C port to a microcontroller or microprocessor without the need to bit-bang and increase software overhead; it allows designers to add additional I2C ports to an MCU or MPU for multiport I2C bus applications, such as when slave devices have the same address, operate at different frequencies or to split bus loading; it provides higher frequency, lower voltage migration path for the PCF8584 for new designs; it converts 8bit parallel data to a serial bus to avoid running multiple traces across the PC board; and it uses Philips Semiconductor 80C51 microcontroller software to reduce development time.

The PCA9564 bus controller is released in 20-pin SO, TSSOP and HVQFN packages.

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