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I have been having a very hard time understanding what a I2C bus is. I would really like some help in understanding what this is. This is a very broad and a very extensive topic that you could go on and on about. Therefore, what I'm asking is for a online resource that could help me out in understanding what it is and how it works. From the sites I've located it has been very hard to understand it's features and uses. I'm just a beginner student and need a more applicable description. Thanks for any guidance you have.

Again I realize this is a very broad topic and apologize if this is unsuited for a thread. However, I'm really fascinated by this thing and I'm looking for the most educational source available in helping me learn how to utilize this and in general what it does.

capcom
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Shane Yost
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    The I2C spec is available online: http://www.nxp.com/documents/other/39340011.pdf As formal specs go, it's pretty easy to read. – The Photon Feb 14 '13 at 02:51
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    I always start at wikipedia and its links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2c – kenny Feb 14 '13 at 03:24
  • Related question: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/55545/17592 –  Feb 14 '13 at 07:15
  • Updated link for Photon's comment: [Rev. 6, April 2014](http://www.nxp.com/documents/user_manual/UM10204.pdf) – Mast Mar 09 '15 at 08:36

3 Answers3

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Quite simple. First, a quick video about I2C from NXP/Phillips, who created it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcWixZcZ6JY

I2C is a data communication bus, allowing a microcontroller (or other host) to communicate with a wide variety of slave devices. It is 8 bit based, uses two wires (Data and Clock, and common Ground). It allows for addressing of the slaves, so each slave does not need an individual enable pin. It has methods for multiple hosts, and arbitration to make sure there is no corruption of communication. It is ideal for low pin count.

Passerby
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If you are interested in gaining inpiration go head and read.

But if you have an application in mind, you need to know the address of the device you are communicating with. If you have a \$\mu\$C, the compiler should handle all the stuff automagically.

aiao
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I couldn't resist to chime in on this as I just encountered a printed copy of a long document from Phillips in my printed archive. Phillips created the standard and published pretty good documentation as they wanted the industry to accept their standard.

Although the document is old, it could be found here on my skydrive.

i2c std from 1995

PS: If you download and like it, don't forget to give this post a +1 :-)

Chetan Bhargava
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