The I2C-bus specification:In consumer electronics, telecommunications and industrial electronics, there are often many similarities between seemingly unrelated designs. For example,nearly every system includes:
· Some intelligent control, usually a single-chip microcontroller
· General-purpose circuits like LCD drivers, remote I/O ports, RAM, EEPROM, or data converters
· Application-oriented circuits such as digital tuning and signal processing circuits for radio and video systems, or DTMF generators for telephones with tone dialling. To exploit these similarities to the benefit of both systems designers and equipment manufacturers, as well as to maximize hardware efficiency and circuit simplicity, Philips developed a simple bi-directional 2-wire bus for efficient inter-IC control. This bus is called the Inter IC or I2C-bus.
At present, Philips’ IC range includes more than 150 CMOS and bipolar I2C-bus compatible types for performing functions in all three of the previously mentioned categories. All I2C-bus compatible devices incorporate an on-chip interface which allows them to communicate directly with each other via the I2C-bus. This design concept solves the many interfacing problems encountered when designing digital control circuits.