Royal Philips Electronics has launched what the company claims is the industry’s first I2C Logic devices based on the Fast-mode Plus (Fm+) specification. The I2C Fast-mode Plus specification goes up to a frequency of 1MHz (1MB/s)— more than twice the frequency of previous IμC-bus speed specifications—and is backward compatible with existing Fast-mode and Standard-mode devices. In addition, Fm+ increases the total possible capacitance by a factor of 10, enabling longer distance transmission at slower bus speeds without requiring buffers. This allows engineers to create more f lexible system designs at higher speeds when more bandwidth is needed; or use larger buses for emerging applications in LED and architectural lighting and gaming, which require a larger number of components on a single bus.
First invented by Philips in the early 1980s, the I2C-bus is now the de facto standard for system control and is a two-wire bus with a software-defined protocol that provides the communications link between integrated circuits in a system. With I2C, designers can easily add devices and functions to an existing bus, saving space and lowering overall costs.
The first in the company’s series of products that support the 1MHz Fm+ interface include: the PCA9633, a 4-bit I2C LED controller optimized for RGBA color mixing; PCA9698, an advanced 40-bit I2C I/O expander; and PCA9665, a fastmode plus parallel bus to I2C-bus controller.
Royal Philips Electronicswww.philips.com
