I2C Questions -- Not In the FAQ

1a. The Phillips I2C controller can be a pain to interface to -- it is supposed to automagically sense the difference between a Motorola 6800-type bus and an Intel bus, but it only works if the _very first transaction_ is to the I2C controller. We tried using it with a '186 and finally threw up our hands and bit-banged the I2C. 1b. You can do unique addressing. Most I2C EEPROM chips and at least some ADCs allow you to set some of the address bits in hardware by strapping pins; I'm not aware enough of the market beyond that to say. If you want to have six identical boards you may need to have jumpers for addressing. 1c. Possibly. Not so much for the addresses, but I believe Phillips holds the patents on I2C. You may be under their radar screen if you're not building chips (I've even heard it suggested that just not using the name "I2C" is sufficient). I am _not_ a lawyer, however, so anything you do in this arena is your sole responsibility.

1. You undoubtedly have other constraints, but I heartily recommend the new processor.

3a. You assign addresses however you want; just choose what you want to respond to. 3b. The main difference is that a slave will have to respond to the clock asynchronously and promptly -- you'll have to make sure that your software is up to this, and you'll probably need to be able to interrupt on the I2C clock. Being an I2C slave will put much more of a strain on your processor (hence my answer to 2).

1. Action on the I2C clock is always initiated by the master, there's no 3rd-party clock master.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Hi, I made several I2C bit-banging hardware and software myself, I'll try to help you here:

I don't understand you here. Do you want your sensor to be a master? Normally the main board is the master and the sensor the slave. Or do you have several main boards? Do you want several masters to scan alarm sensors?

I2C messagges contains two fields: the device code (the identification af the chip) and an address.

Most I2C devices have 3 select lines that give you the possibility to have 8 different adresses within the same devicecode. Download the .pdf files from Philips, they explain it clearly. In the I2C message, the device code and the addresss is given, so you can have 8 devices with the same device code (the same chips) and still unique addressing. You do not need a multimaster system for this.

You do not have to pay any royalties to Philips as far as I know. Why don't you give Philips in the Netherlands (only 30km from where I live) a quick call? Or check their website. But you cannot easily assign a new devicecode to an existing chip, it is fixed. You can only set addresses as far as the chips support it. Read the datasheet of the devices you want to use for addressing. Some chips have more possibilities.

See the Philips I2C documentation.

See above, devicecode and address. The address is usually done with io lines, but there are other solutions too. And when you make the slave yourself, you can do what you want.

A slave does not control the clock, it can only stretch it.

See above, the master controls the clock.

If you answer, please send a copy to snipped-for-privacy@hoeben.com as I do not often read in this group and may miss new questions of you.

Regards, feel free to ask any questions.

Pieter Hoeben

Hi,

"Anthony Presley" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

Please be aware that implementing all aspects of a multymaster bus can be a tricky and difficult task especially if you bit-bang your signals instead of using a hardware device.

So the controllers would run in slave mode while the main device is the (multy)-master?

When operating, there is only one master device - the device that sends the clock. As mentioned by other people before there are usually several address choices available by setting / clearing certain pins in hardware.

This is correct.

If you run out of luck (i.e. hardware capabilities) it won't work at all. There are several important tasks to consider in a multymaster environment: a) You need to keep track of the arbitration i.e. during the addressing phase the device writing more zeros (or is slower) wins the arbitration. This is to assure that no two masters address the bus at a time. For this you need to be able to read back the state of the i2c pins.

b) You need to observe the bus to avoid talking during ongoing traffic. (not only during address phase)

c) You need to define in your software what needs to be done if arbitration is lost or if the bus is busy.

If I were you I would spend a chip select line for each sensor which is controlled via a simple i2c io expander like the PCF8574. Each sensor can implement its slave device which is only activated if its corresponding chip select is enabled. Advantages:

• You get by with a single-master software

• No multiple address assignment issues.

• easy to debug.

• The master operates the io expander and the sensors through the same i2c bus - no additional pins are needed.

• easy to extend to more sensors by adding a second io expander.

/Roland

You already got excellent responses. Some additional thoughts:

1. Life on I2C (or TWI, as others call it to avoid lawyers) is much simpler for a master, as it controls (mostly) the timing. The protocol contains a thing called clock clamping, where a slave is able to hold the bus if it's going too fast.

1. For a multi-master bus, a master must be able to function as a slave (see above). The mastership transfer includes that a proposing master must be able to detect clamping of the data line and back off if detected.

2. IMHO, a working slave needs some hardware assistance: the time for bus clamping may be too short to be provided for in software, if the processor has anything else to do. Maybe the minimal hardware is the shift register + clock clamp present in the smallest AVRs. A similar thing could be constructed from a PLD.

Been there - done that.

HTH

Tauno Voipio tauno voipio (at) iki fi

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Alternatively you derive a separate reset line for the PCF8584 and a gated write signal for that device ONLY when it is selected.

The other problem of the clock is LESS than or EQUAL 12MHz is very important. Observe the min time from reset and clock cycles to accessing device.

Done both the types of fixes to get around the issue, and did not cause much problem. Separate RESET can be done by a simple D or RS type at its simplest.

--
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
    PC Services
              GNU H8 & mailing list info
             For those web sites you hate

You should look for some HW support in Multi-master, and the PCF8584 is likely to be more expensive than something like a P89LPC916, which it the smallest (SO16) uC philips show that has both SPI and i2c. Not surprisingly, Philips put i2c support into some of their smaller uC. So either add a tiny uC as SPI-i2c, or find one in your favourites that has i2c in HW.

There are also some uC designed for Monitor use, that include a i2c dual port memory scheme, but they tend to have ordinary ADC specs, and larger packages.

-jg