P82B96_8 © NXP B.V. 2009. All rights reserved.
Product data sheet Rev. 08 — 10 November 2009 18 of 32
NXP Semiconductors
P82B96
Dual bidirectional bus buffer
10.2 Negative undershoot below absolute minimum value
The reason why the IC pin reverse voltage on pins Tx and Rx in Table 4 “Limiting values”
is specified at such a low value, −0.3 V, is not that applying larger voltages is likely to
cause damage but that it is expected that, in normal applications, there is no reason why
larger DC voltages will be applied. This ‘absolute maximum’ specification is intended to be
a DC or continuous ratings and the nominal DC I
2
C-bus voltage LOW usually does not
even reach 0 V. Inside P82B96 at every pin there is a large protective diode connected to
the GND pin and that diode will start to conduct when the pin voltage is more than about
−0.55 V with respect to GND at 25 °C ambient.
Figure 21 shows the measured characteristic for one of those diodes inside P82B96. The
plot was made using a curve tracer that applies 50 Hz mains voltage via a series resistor,
so the pulse durations are long duration (several milliseconds) and are reaching peaks of
over 2 A when more than −1.5 V is applied. The IC becomes very hot during this testing
but it was not damaged. Whenever there is current flowing in any of these diodes it is
possible that there can be faulty operation of any IC. For that reason we put a specification
on the negative voltage that is allowed to be applied. It is selected so that, at the highest
allowed junction temperature, there will be a big safety factor that guarantees the diode
will not conduct and then we do not need to make any 100 % production tests to
guarantee the published specification.
For the P82B96, in specific applications, there will always be transient overshoot and
ringing on the wiring that can cause these diodes to conduct. Therefore we designed the
IC to withstand those transients and as a part of the qualification procedure we made
tests, using DC currents to more than twice the normal bus sink currents, to be sure that
the IC was not affected by those currents. For example, the Tx/Ty and Rx/Ry pins were
tested to at least −80 mA which, from Figure 21, would be more than −0.8 V. The correct
functioning of the P82B96 is not affected even by those large currents. The Absolute
Maximum (DC) ratings are not intended to apply to transients but to steady state
conditions. This explains why you will never see any problems in practice even if, during
transients, more than −0.3 V is applied to the bus interface pins of P82B96.
Frequency = 624 kHz Ch1 frequency = 624 kHz
Fig 19. Propagation Sx to Tx (Sx pull-up to 5 V;
Tx pull-up to V
CC
=10V)
Fig 20. Propagation Rx to Sx (Sx pull-up to 5 V;
Rx pull-up to V
CC
=10V)
−2
10
6
2
14
V
ns
002aab995
Tx
Sx
0 20001600800 1200400
−2
10
6
2
14
V
ns
002aab996
Rx
Sx
0 20001600800 1200400