The Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter is a fast and powerful I2C bus and SPI bus host adapter through USB. It allows a developer to interface a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X PC via USB to a downstream embedded system environment and transfer serial messages using the I2C and SPI protocols.

Overview

• I2C master and slave up to 800 kHz

• I2C multi-master support

• SPI master up to 8 MHz

• SPI slave up to 4 MHz

• GPIO with selectable pins

I2C

• True 800 kbps performance over higher bandwidth USB versus slower RS-232.

• Supports standard mode (100 kbps) and fast (400 kbps) mode as well as various speeds ranging from 1 kHz to 800 kHz.

• Supports inter-bit and inter-byte clock stretching.

• Supports multi-master.

• Master transmit and receive.

• Asynchronous slave transmit and receive.

• Software configurable I2C pull-up resistors.

• Software configurable target power pins to power downstream devices.

• Repeated Start, 10-bit slave addressing, and Combined Format transactions.

The Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter is compatible with:

• Display Data Channel (DDC)

• System Management Bus (SMBus)

• Power Management Bus (PMBus)

• Smart Battery Bus (SBBus)

• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)

• Two-Wire Interface (TWI)

Learn more about I2C in theI2C Background Article.

† Actual system bus speed may vary as a function of capacitance.

SPI

• Operates in master or slave mode.

• From 0.125 kHz up to 8 Mbps master signaling rate.

• Up to 4 Mbps slave signaling rate.

• Full duplex master transmit/receive.

• Asynchronous slave transmit/receive.

• Software configurable target power pins to power downstream devices.

• Software configurable Slave Select (SS) polarity in master mode.

Learn more about SPI in theSPI Background article.

GPIO - General Purpose IO

• I2C and SPI pins can be repurposed for more general use, allowing them to be used for custom signals on target systems.

• GPIO functionality can also be combined with I2C or SPI to interact with your target system.

• GPIO configuration is cached internally to preserve settings between operational modes.

Low Cost

The Aardvark adapter comes complete with a royalty-free API.

The low cost makes it affordable for a company to provide every developer with their own interface. The benefits of every developer having their own interface are:

• Less time wasted because developers do not have to share tools or go to the lab to debug simple problems.

• Less wasted time meanshigher productivity because developers can identify and fix problems quickly and easily with less down-time.

• Higher productivity meansshorter development cycles. Projects get done on time and on budget