I2C Parts

Almost 20 years ago the I2C bus was designed by Philips to allow easy communication between components which reside on the same circuit board.

The name I2C translates into "Inter IC". The original communication speed was defined with a maximum of 100 kbit per second and many applications don't require faster transmissions. For those that do there is a 400 kbit and a high speed 3.4 Mbit option available.

I2C is not only used on single boards, but also to connect components which are linked via cable. Simplicity and flexibility are key characteristics that make this bus especially attractive for consumer and automotive electronics.

Most significant features include:

- Only two bus lines are required
- No strict baud rate requirements like for instance with RS232, the master generates a bus clock
- Simple master/slave relationships exist between all components
- Each device connected to the bus is software-addressable by a unique address
- I2C is a true multi-master bus providing arbitration and collision detection