rupt, the host (Bus Master) interrogates the bus slave
devices via a special receive-byte operation that
includes the alert response address. The data returned
by this receive-byte operation is the address of the
offending slave device. The interrupt pointer address
can activate several different slave devices simultane-
ously. If more than one slave attempts to respond, bus
arbitration rules apply, with the lowest address code
going first. The other device(s) will not generate an
acknowledge and will continue to hold the ALERT line
low or repeat the START-STOP interrupt until serviced.
Clearing Interrupts via Alert Response
When a fault occurs, ALERT asserts and latches low. If
the fault is momentary and disappears before the
device is serviced, ALERT remains asserted. Normally,
the master sends out the Alert Response address fol-
lowed by a read bit (00011001). ALERT clears when
the device responds by successfully putting its
address on the bus. Reading the Alert Response
address is the
only
method for clearing hardware
and software interrupt latches. Clearing the interrupt
has no effect on the state of the status registers.
MAX1661/MAX1662/MAX1663
Serial-to-Parallel/Parallel-to-Serial Converters and
Load-Switch Controllers with SMBus Interface
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