INTEGRATED CIRCUITS DIVISION
CPC5902
R03 www.ixysic.com 9
determined by tOPLH_AB. Side B deassertion occurs at
time tENDB given by:
tENDB = tENDA + tSLEWA + tOPLH_AB
Thus at Side B input, an applied pulse of less than
80ns is stretched to:
tPWB_min = tFIL + tOPHL_BA + tOPHL_AB + tOPLH_BA + tSLEWA + tOPLH_AB
which is typically 330ns. More importantly, only one
pulse is seen at both ports, with no extra or missing
clock or data edges, assuring line integrity.
Pulses of width larger than approximately 80ns
applied to the Side B input do not utilize the flip-flop to
terminate the pulse, but do need to propagate to
Side A and then back to Side B when returning high
after being asserted low. The Side A pulse width is
given by the usual pulse width distortion relation:
tPWA_nom = tPULSE + tPLH_BA - tPHL_BA
which is typically tPULSE + 75ns. Note that tPLH_BA and
tPHL_BA are observed at the external pins, and are
provided in the table, “Electrical Specifications” on
page 4. The pulse at Side B is asserted by an
external driver pulling low, and lasts for time tPULSE. At
the end of the pulse, the rising edge passes through
the internal filter with delay tFIL, then applied to the
LED and received at Side A tOPLH_BA later. After time
tSLEWA the output at Side A crosses the logic high
threshold causing the Side A LED drive to deactivate,
which propagates the deasserted state back to Side B
with a delay of tOPLH_AB. Thus normal-width pulses of
width tPULSE applied at Side B (IOB) exhibit a
stretched pulse width of:
tPWB_nom = tPULSE + tFIL + tOPLH_BA + tSLEWA + tOPLH_AB
at IOB, which is also given by:
tPWB_nom = tPULSE + tPHL_BAB
and is typically tPULSE + 290ns.
Side A receivers have been designed to exhibit a
significant amount of hysteresis, which helps to
eliminate false clocking. They have not been internally
low-pass filtered beyond the filtering inherent within
the optical channel. When the I2C bus is terminated
for maximum bandwidth (6mA pullups and minimal
capacitance), the receivers typically will respond to
pulses greater than 12ns. If additional filtering is
desired, then externally increasing the load
capacitance of the I2C lines until the amount of time
the offending signal spends above/below VDD /2 is
less than 10ns will reject the signal at the expense of
increasing rise and fall times.
Side B receivers do implement some hysteresis and
low-pass filtering in addition to the optics. An
asserted pulse typically needs to be held below
0.2VDD for 15ns before it is accepted at Side B input.
This may require a 30ns pulse applied by a typical
driver with just 20pF loading the I2C lines.
While any very short pulses stretched to the minimum
times above would seem to cause large amounts of
pulse width distortion, within 400kHz Fast-mode I2C
the shortest allowable signal or clock asserted low
time is 1.3s. Neither Standard-mode nor Fast-mode
variants include any legal signals that are less than
80ns (typ); thus the tPWA_nom and tPWB_nom equations
above always apply. The pulse width on valid longer
pulses receives less stretching and is proportionally
less noticeable. For example the Fast-mode minimum
clock low time of 1.3S when applied at Side B would
typically be seen as a 1.375S pulse at Side A and will
be stretched to a length of 1.59s for other devices on
the Side B bus.
Internal filtering and the flip-flop at Side B are used to
ensure that an equal number of pulse edges are seen
at both sides of the isolation barrier when Side B is
driven. When a signal at Side B is asserted low, the
flip-flop self-drives that Side B I/O pin until the optical
channel back from Side A proves that Side A has
successfully been asserted. While this is generally a
welcome error reduction feature and is especially
useful on the side with nonstandard levels, it does
need to be considered when assigning Side A and
Side B ports. If Side A is not powered up, then the
signal back from Side A will not appear until after
Side A has been powered, and the signal at Side B
will be stretched until that time. Side A uses filtered
hysteresis at its standard inputs, not pulse stretching,
to defeat sub-minimum-size pulses. Thus that side of
the isolation barrier, which will be the bus master at
power-up, should generally be assigned to Side A.
Note that the pinout of the package is rotationally
symmetrical. As a result, changing which side of the
isolation barrier utilizes Side A standard levels can be
accomplished by rotating the part 180° before it is
soldered onto the board.