I2C Bus State Logic

The bus state logic includes several logic blocks that continuously monitor the activity on the I²C bus lines in all sleep modes. The start and stop detectors and the bit counter are all essential in the process of determining the current bus state. The bus state is determined according to Bus State Diagram. Software can get the current bus state by reading the Master Bus State bits in the Status register (STATUS.BUSSTATE). The value of STATUS.BUSSTATE in the figure is shown in binary.

Figure 1. Bus State Diagram

The bus state machine is active when the I²C master is enabled.

After the I²C master has been enabled, the bus state is UNKNOWN (0b00). From the UNKNOWN state, the bus will transition to IDLE (0b01) by either:

Forcing by by writing 0b01 to STATUS.BUSSTATE
A stop condition is detected on the bus
If the inactive bus time-out is configured for SMBus compatibility (CTRLA.INACTOUT) and a time-out occurs.

Note: Once a known bus state is established, the bus state logic will not re-enter the UNKNOWN state.

When the bus is IDLE it is ready for a new transaction. If a start condition is issued on the bus by another I²C master in a multi-master setup, the bus becomes BUSY (0b11). The bus will re-enter IDLE either when a stop condition is detected, or when a time-out occurs (inactive bus time-out needs to be configured).

If a start condition is generated internally by writing the Address bit group in the Address register (ADDR.ADDR) while IDLE, the OWNER state (0b10) is entered. If the complete transaction was performed without interference, i.e., arbitration was not lost, the I²C master can issue a stop condition, which will change the bus state back to IDLE.

However, if a packet collision is detected while in OWNER state, the arbitration is assumed lost and the bus state becomes BUSY until a stop condition is detected. A repeated start condition will change the bus state only if arbitration is lost while issuing a repeated start.

Regardless of winning or losing arbitration, the entire address will be sent. If arbitration is lost, only 'ones' are transmitted from the point of losing arbitration and the rest of the address length.

Note: Violating the protocol may cause the I²C to hang. If this happens it is possible to recover from this state by a software reset (CTRLA.SWRST='1').