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
