Clock Arbitration

Clock arbitration occurs when the master, during any receive, transmit or Repeated Start/Stop condition, releases the SCL pin (SCL allowed to float high). When the SCL pin is allowed to float high, the Baud Rate Generator (BRG) is suspended from counting until the SCL pin is actually sampled high. When the SCL pin is sampled high, the Baud Rate Generator is reloaded with the contents of SSPxADD and begins counting. This ensures that the SCL high time will always be at least one BRG rollover count in the event that the clock is held low by an external device as shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. Baud Rate Generator Timing with Clock Arbitration