What is MIPI I3C ?
The MIPI I3C Bus interface is an evolutionary specification that builds upon the legacy I2C standard. The aim is to reduce the number of physical pins used in sensor system integration, and supports low-power, high-speed digital communication typically associated with UART and SPI interfaces, so that I3C becomes a single interface combining all the capabilities of the legacy interfaces.
I3C Protocol has a multi-drop bus which, at 12.5 MHz, is over 12 times faster than what I2C supports while using significantly less power.
I3C Protocol’s main features include:
• Backward compatibility with legacy I2C
• Multi-Master and Multi-drop capabilities
• Dynamic Addressing
• In-Band Interrupts
• Hot-Join support
The I3C Protocol interface is expected to play a fundamental role in streamlining sensor integration in smartphones, Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and wearables. I3C can also be used to manage complex systems as and when designers migrate to a common management transport which drastically reduces cost and latency in such complex systems while also enabling new capabilities.
MIPI I3C Theory of Operations: I3C Protocol
All I3C Protocol communications occurs within a frame. The frame begins with a START, followed by one or more transfers, and a STOP.
I3C interface supports Single Data Rate (SDR) messages which are similar to I2C Messages. Maximum clock speed is 12.5MHz. It also supports high data rate (HDR) messages. In HDR, data transfer is equivalent to clock cycles. There are two types of messages Broadcast and Direct common command code (CCC) messages which allows the master to communicate with all or specific slave on the bus.
I3C protocol is based on frame encapsulation approach. The I3C frame always include START, the Header, the data and the STOP. I3C bus always initialized in SDR mode and never in HDR modes.
Common Command Code (CCC) commands protocol is formatted using only in SDR. CCC are transmitted to specific to slave or all slaves in I3C bus. CCC General format as shown in this figure.
For the HDR modes:
• First the dedicated Broadcast I3C address(7’h7E) is issued to all slaves on the I3C bus.
• Then one of the Enter HDR CCC’s is issued, indicating that the Master is entering the HDR mode. Each HDR mode has its own Enter HDR CCC.
• This is followed by one or more HDR transfers.
• HDR mode is ended by using the HDR exit pattern protocol.
For more details on I3C protocols, please refer to MIPI® I3C specifications.
I3C devices have Bus and Device characteristic registers which will hold information about the capabilities of I3C device.
I3C bus can be configured with multiple devices. These devices are I3C Main Master, I3C secondary Master, I3C Slave and I2C Slave.
I3C devices many have many features as appropriate for their function in the I3C bus. Depending on the I3C Bus system need, it may not be necessary that all features are enabled for any particular bus instantiation. Enabled features of every I3C device shall be described in characteristic register of the device. Master obtains the characteristic register info during the power ip state of I3C bus.
At start up stage from power-down, main master shall assign unique dynamic address to every device on the bus including itself. Dynamic address creates a priority ranking of device interrupts. If any secondary master present in the I3C bus shall be made aware of dynamic address and characteristic registers.
I3C based electronic hardware design involves design of I3C Master, I3C Slave and I3C system designs. These designs offer different challenges at different state of the design cycle. Design engineers need a tool to debug the I3C device for reliable operations. Some of the important requirements are
• Designers who are developing master or slave, they need fully working Master or Slave device which designers can configure and test their designs.
• Make sure I2C devices can co-exist with I3C bus
• They need a tool which will capture the communication between Master and slave and analyze the protocol traffic for protocol errors
• Need a tool to capture protocol traffic at a specific event. These events could be anticipated error condition or protocol activity
Emulate I3C bus using the designed Master or Slave device in I3C network
Where is I3C Protocol being used ?
I3C protocol is used in de-facto standard for integrating sensors in the System. Temperature sensors, gyroscopes etc. There are new interesting applications for I3C interfaces in data centres as management bus.
Debugging I3C Tools :
When working with I3C, it is important to have right set of tools to ensure the I3C design is implemented properly. Having a logic analyzer and oscilloscope are always helpful to debug complex hardware timing issues. There are cheaper tools available in the market to test I3C, however limited with capability.
A logic analyzer is an excellent tool to debug when implementing and designing the I3C Bus. This can help you understand the protocol packet level issues.
An oscilloscope is helpful in case you want to measure the timing parameters of the I3C Device.
I3C protocol analyzer can be very helpful to do I3C packet sniffing. Prodigy Technovations also offers a I3C trigger and decode software to debug your I3C packets using Tektronix oscilloscope.
How Prodigy Technovations Interfaces with I3C?
Prodigy Technovations has number of different tools that interface with I3C protocol. All the I3C tools fall into two different areas .The protocol analyzer monitor the traffic that is happening on the bus. The exerciser allows users to interface directly on I3C System and drive I3C Data.
Benefits of Prodigy Technovations I3C Exerciser and Analyzer:
• Ability to configure it as Master or Slave
• Ability to configure PID,BCR and DCR registers
• Supports legacy I2C slaves and Master
• Generate different I3C and I2C SDR and HDR Packets
• Flexibility to upgrade the unit TSP and TSL encoding (When it is available)
• Error Injection such CRC errors, parity errors and ACK/NACK errors
• Variable I3C data speeds
• Simultaneously generate I3C traffic and Protocol decode of the Bus
• Timing diagram of Protocol decoded bus
• Listing view of Protocol activity
• Error Analysis in Protocol Decode
• State Machine view of the I3C packets
• Ability to write exerciser script to combine multiple data frame generation at different data speeds
• USB2/3 host computer interface
• Flexibility to upgrade to the unit for evolving I3C Specification
