Efficient I2C Bus debug using Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes

Dave Pereles, Tektronix
embedded.com (October 7, 2012)

Version 4.0 of the Inter-IC (I²C) bus is widely used in embedded system designs, and has been used for communications and control applications in thousands of integrated circuits.

What’s also still widely used is manual measurement and debug, in part because engineers assume that since I²C has been around for a long time, there’s little to go wrong. The trouble comes when there’s a need to trigger bus commands using manual decode.

I², I²C, or “I squared C”, stands for Inter-Integrated Circuit. It was originally developed by Philips Semiconductor in the early 1980s to provide a low-cost way of connecting controllers to peripheral chips, and has since evolved into a worldwide standard for communication between devices in embedded systems.

The simple two-wire design has found its way into an extensive cross section of chips including I/O, A/Ds, D/As, temperature sensors, microcontrollers and microprocessors from numerous leading chipmakers including Analog Devices, Atmel, Cyprus, Freescale, Infineon, Intel, Maxim, Microchip, NXP, Silicon Labs, ST Microelectronics, Texas Instruments, Xicor, and many others.

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