5
FN8208.2
September 7, 2010
PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION
SERIAL INTERFACE
Serial Interface Conventions
The device supports a bidirectional bus oriented
protocol. The protocol defines any device that
sends data onto the bus as a transmitter, and the
receiving device as the receiver. The device con-
trolling the transfer is called the master and the
device being controlled is called the slave. The
master always initiates data transfers, and pro-
vides the clock for both transmit and receive oper-
ations. Therefore, the X9522 operates as a slave in
all applications.
Serial Clock and Data
Data states on the SDA line can change only while
SCL is LOW. SDA state changes while SCL is
HIGH are reserved for indicating START and STOP
conditions. See Figure 1. On power-up of the
X9522, the SDA pin is in the input mode.
Serial Start Condition
All commands are preceded by the START condi-
tion, which is a HIGH to LOW transition of SDA
while SCL is HIGH. The device continuously moni-
tors the SDA and SCL lines for the START condi-
tion and does not respond to any command until
this condition has been met. See Figure 2.
Serial Stop Condition
All communications must be terminated by a STOP
condition, which is a LOW to HIGH transition of
SDA while SCL is HIGH. The STOP condition is also
used to place the device into the Standby power
mode after a read sequence. A STOP condition can
only be issued after the transmitting device has
released the bus. See Figure 2.
Serial Acknowledge
An ACKNOWLEDGE (ACK) is a software conven-
tion used to indicate a successful data transfer. The
transmitting device, either master or slave, will
release the bus after transmitting eight bits. During
the ninth clock cycle, the receiver will pull the SDA
line LOW to ACKNOWLEDGE that it received the
eight bits of data. Refer to Figure 3.
The device will respond with an ACKNOWLEDGE
after recognition of a START condition if the cor-
rect Device Identifier bits are contained in the
Slave Address Byte. If a write operation is
selected, the device will respond with an
ACKNOWLEDGE after the receipt of each subse-
quent eight bit word.
In the read mode, the device will transmit eight
bits of data, release the SDA line, then monitor the
line for an ACKNOWLEDGE. If an ACKNOWLEDGE
is detected and no STOP condition is generated by
the master, the device will continue to transmit
data. The device will terminate further data trans-
missions if an ACKNOWLEDGE is not detected.
The master must then issue a STOP condition to
place the device into a known state.
SCL
SDA
Data Stable Data Change Data Stable
Figure 1. Valid Data Changes on the SDA Bus
SCL
SDA
Start Stop
Figure 2. Valid Start and Stop Conditions
X9522