Overview
The I3C (Improved Inter-Integrated Circuit) is the successor of the I2C bus. Keeping the best assets from its elder brother, the I3C has major improvements in use and power, and performance. The Core uses just two pins and consumes a fraction of the energy, reducing cost and complexity while allowing multiple sensors from different vendors to be easily interfaced with a controller or application processor.
DCD maintains backward compatibility, enabling a smooth transition from I2C to I3C and simple implementation. The newest Core offers a flexible multi-drop interface between a host processor and peripheral sensors, to support the growing usage of sensors in embedded systems. The same I3C standardizes sensor communication, reduces the number of physical pins used in sensor system integration, and supports low-power, high-speed, and other critical features that are currently covered by I2C and SPI.
Learn more about I2C / I3C IP core
The I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) Bus invented in 1980 by Philips Semiconductors (NXP Semiconductors today) was a massive step forward in simplifying communications in embedded systems. It is a simple two-wire interface for synchronous, multi-master/multi-slave, single ended serial communication. Fast forward 45 years to today and it is still widely used for attaching low speed peripheral Integrated Circuits (ICs), processors and microcontrollers. But silicon today has changed...
Early in my career selling chips for Motorola Semiconductor, the ability to spin derivative microcontroller chips for a customer’s specific requirement was relatively straightforward. If the volume looked reasonable, we would tape-out a new chip with a few added features because mask costs and wafers were relatively inexpensive at the larger process nodes. The customer won by getting an MCU tailored to their specific need, and Motorola won by gaining a more committed customer plus another SKU that could be sold to other customers – boosting ROI. With the migration to higher cost FinFET nodes, those times are long gone as the economics no longer work.
Sharmion Kerley, MIPI Director of Marketing and Membership
Imagine a camera subsystem that responds in microseconds, consumes less power, and offers a more straightforward route to time-to-market. For SoC architects and IP integration teams, that vision is increasingly possible with MIPI Camera Control Interface (CCI) over I3C.
