1. General description
The P82B715 is a bipolar IC intended for application in I
2
C-bus and derivative bus
systems. While retaining all the operating modes and features of the I
2
C-bus it permits
extension of the practical separation distance between components on the I
2
C-bus by
buffering both the data (SDA) and the clock (SCL) lines.
The I
2
C-bus capacitance limit of 400 pF restricts practical communication distances to a
few meters. Using one P82B715 at each end of a long cable (connecting Lx/Ly to Lx/Ly)
reduces that cable’s loading on the linked I
2
C-buses by a factor of 10 and allows the total
system capacitance load (all devices, cable, connectors, and traces or wires connected to
the I
2
C-bus) to be around 3000 pF while the loading on each I
2
C-bus on the Sx/Sy sides
remains below 400 pF. Longer cables or low-cost, general-purpose wiring may be used to
link I
2
C-bus based modules without degrading noise margins. Multiple P82B715s can be
connected together, linking their Lx/Ly ports, in a star or multi-point architecture as long as
the total capacitance of the system is less than about 3000 pF and each bus at an Sx/Sy
connection is well below 400 pF. This configuration, with the master and/or slave devices
attached to the Sx/Sy port of each P82B715, has full multi-master communication
capability. The P82B715 alone does not support voltage level translation, but it can be
simply implemented using low cost transistors when required. There is no restriction on
interconnecting the Sx/Sy I/Os, and, because the device output levels are always held
within 100 mV of input drive levels, P82B715 is compatible with bus buffers that use
voltage level offsets, e.g., PCA9511A, PCA9517, Sx/Sy side of P82B96.
The lower V
OL
level and ability to operate with any master, slave or bus buffer is the
primary advantage of the using the P82B715 for long distance buses at the disadvantage
of not isolating bus capacitance like the P82B96 or PCA9600 are able to do. The primary
disadvantage of the P82B96 and PCA9600 is that the static level offset needed to isolate
bus capacitance does not allow these devices to operate with other bus buffers with
special offset levels or with master/slaves that require a V
IL
lower than 0.8 V with noise
margin. A proven quick design-in point-to-point/multi-point circuit (Figure 9) is included in
Section 8.2 to allow rapid use of the P82B715 along with comparison waveforms so that
the designer can clearly see the trade-offs between the P82B715 and the
P82B96/PCA9600 and choose the type of device that is best for their application.
2. Features
n Dual, bidirectional, unity voltage gain buffer with no external directional control
required
n Compatible with I
2
C-bus and its derivatives SMBus, PMBus, DDC, etc.
n Logic signal levels may include (but not exceed) both supply and ground
n Logic signal input voltage levels are output without change and are independent of V
CC
n ×10 impedance transformation, but does not change logic voltage levels
P82B715
I
2
C-bus extender
Rev. 08 — 9 November 2009 Product data sheet
