Networking

All About I2C

What a time to be an electronics enthusiast! These days there is no shortage of communication standards and protocols for microcontrollers and other electronic devices. In addition to the I2C specification — the topic of this article, we have SPI, UART, RS-232, CAN, LIN, 1-wire, the ubiquitous USB interface and more.

And these are just wired serial communications. If we throw in wireless and parallel specifications and protocols, the list grows much bigger.

Each of the above have their own pros, cons, and are suitable for different purposes. This article will be an introduction to the I2C specification. You will see I2C written as I²C in many instances and both are technically correct. However, to keep things easy and consistent, we’ll refer to the protocol as I2C in the rest of this article.

Be sure to go until the end for a nice summary on I2C communications and an I2C specifications chart!

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A Small CAN of History

CAN is short for Controller Area Network. It was originally created by the Robert Bosch company. CAN networks have found their home mostly in vehicles where they’ve been used since the late 1980s.

The first vehicles to use CAN were expensive luxury cars like Mercedes. As the average vehicle grew more complex and found itself stuffed with more and more electronics, CAN migrated to more ordinary vehicles.

CAN’s cousin, LIN (Local Interconnect Network) is newer and used for less critical subsystems where data transmission speed and reliability are less critical such as air-conditioning and infotainment.

CAN is designed for more critical systems like engine control, anti-lock brakes, parking assist etc.