smbus-protocol.rst (9988B)
1================== 2The SMBus Protocol 3================== 4 5The following is a summary of the SMBus protocol. It applies to 6all revisions of the protocol (1.0, 1.1, and 2.0). 7Certain protocol features which are not supported by 8this package are briefly described at the end of this document. 9 10Some adapters understand only the SMBus (System Management Bus) protocol, 11which is a subset from the I2C protocol. Fortunately, many devices use 12only the same subset, which makes it possible to put them on an SMBus. 13 14If you write a driver for some I2C device, please try to use the SMBus 15commands if at all possible (if the device uses only that subset of the 16I2C protocol). This makes it possible to use the device driver on both 17SMBus adapters and I2C adapters (the SMBus command set is automatically 18translated to I2C on I2C adapters, but plain I2C commands can not be 19handled at all on most pure SMBus adapters). 20 21Below is a list of SMBus protocol operations, and the functions executing 22them. Note that the names used in the SMBus protocol specifications usually 23don't match these function names. For some of the operations which pass a 24single data byte, the functions using SMBus protocol operation names execute 25a different protocol operation entirely. 26 27Each transaction type corresponds to a functionality flag. Before calling a 28transaction function, a device driver should always check (just once) for 29the corresponding functionality flag to ensure that the underlying I2C 30adapter supports the transaction in question. See 31Documentation/i2c/functionality.rst for the details. 32 33 34Key to symbols 35============== 36 37=============== ============================================================= 38S Start condition 39Sr Repeated start condition, used to switch from write to 40 read mode. 41P Stop condition 42Rd/Wr (1 bit) Read/Write bit. Rd equals 1, Wr equals 0. 43A, NA (1 bit) Acknowledge (ACK) and Not Acknowledge (NACK) bit 44Addr (7 bits) I2C 7 bit address. Note that this can be expanded as usual to 45 get a 10 bit I2C address. 46Comm (8 bits) Command byte, a data byte which often selects a register on 47 the device. 48Data (8 bits) A plain data byte. Sometimes, I write DataLow, DataHigh 49 for 16 bit data. 50Count (8 bits) A data byte containing the length of a block operation. 51 52[..] Data sent by I2C device, as opposed to data sent by the host 53 adapter. 54=============== ============================================================= 55 56 57SMBus Quick Command 58=================== 59 60This sends a single bit to the device, at the place of the Rd/Wr bit:: 61 62 S Addr Rd/Wr [A] P 63 64Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_QUICK 65 66 67SMBus Receive Byte 68================== 69 70Implemented by i2c_smbus_read_byte() 71 72This reads a single byte from a device, without specifying a device 73register. Some devices are so simple that this interface is enough; for 74others, it is a shorthand if you want to read the same register as in 75the previous SMBus command:: 76 77 S Addr Rd [A] [Data] NA P 78 79Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_READ_BYTE 80 81 82SMBus Send Byte 83=============== 84 85Implemented by i2c_smbus_write_byte() 86 87This operation is the reverse of Receive Byte: it sends a single byte 88to a device. See Receive Byte for more information. 89 90:: 91 92 S Addr Wr [A] Data [A] P 93 94Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WRITE_BYTE 95 96 97SMBus Read Byte 98=============== 99 100Implemented by i2c_smbus_read_byte_data() 101 102This reads a single byte from a device, from a designated register. 103The register is specified through the Comm byte:: 104 105 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Sr Addr Rd [A] [Data] NA P 106 107Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_READ_BYTE_DATA 108 109 110SMBus Read Word 111=============== 112 113Implemented by i2c_smbus_read_word_data() 114 115This operation is very like Read Byte; again, data is read from a 116device, from a designated register that is specified through the Comm 117byte. But this time, the data is a complete word (16 bits):: 118 119 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Sr Addr Rd [A] [DataLow] A [DataHigh] NA P 120 121Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_READ_WORD_DATA 122 123Note the convenience function i2c_smbus_read_word_swapped() is 124available for reads where the two data bytes are the other way 125around (not SMBus compliant, but very popular.) 126 127 128SMBus Write Byte 129================ 130 131Implemented by i2c_smbus_write_byte_data() 132 133This writes a single byte to a device, to a designated register. The 134register is specified through the Comm byte. This is the opposite of 135the Read Byte operation. 136 137:: 138 139 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Data [A] P 140 141Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WRITE_BYTE_DATA 142 143 144SMBus Write Word 145================ 146 147Implemented by i2c_smbus_write_word_data() 148 149This is the opposite of the Read Word operation. 16 bits 150of data are written to a device, to the designated register that is 151specified through the Comm byte:: 152 153 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] DataLow [A] DataHigh [A] P 154 155Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WRITE_WORD_DATA 156 157Note the convenience function i2c_smbus_write_word_swapped() is 158available for writes where the two data bytes are the other way 159around (not SMBus compliant, but very popular.) 160 161 162SMBus Process Call 163================== 164 165This command selects a device register (through the Comm byte), sends 16616 bits of data to it, and reads 16 bits of data in return:: 167 168 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] DataLow [A] DataHigh [A] 169 Sr Addr Rd [A] [DataLow] A [DataHigh] NA P 170 171Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_PROC_CALL 172 173 174SMBus Block Read 175================ 176 177Implemented by i2c_smbus_read_block_data() 178 179This command reads a block of up to 32 bytes from a device, from a 180designated register that is specified through the Comm byte. The amount 181of data is specified by the device in the Count byte. 182 183:: 184 185 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] 186 Sr Addr Rd [A] [Count] A [Data] A [Data] A ... A [Data] NA P 187 188Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_READ_BLOCK_DATA 189 190 191SMBus Block Write 192================= 193 194Implemented by i2c_smbus_write_block_data() 195 196The opposite of the Block Read command, this writes up to 32 bytes to 197a device, to a designated register that is specified through the 198Comm byte. The amount of data is specified in the Count byte. 199 200:: 201 202 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Count [A] Data [A] Data [A] ... [A] Data [A] P 203 204Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WRITE_BLOCK_DATA 205 206 207SMBus Block Write - Block Read Process Call 208=========================================== 209 210SMBus Block Write - Block Read Process Call was introduced in 211Revision 2.0 of the specification. 212 213This command selects a device register (through the Comm byte), sends 2141 to 31 bytes of data to it, and reads 1 to 31 bytes of data in return:: 215 216 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Count [A] Data [A] ... 217 Sr Addr Rd [A] [Count] A [Data] ... A P 218 219Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_BLOCK_PROC_CALL 220 221 222SMBus Host Notify 223================= 224 225This command is sent from a SMBus device acting as a master to the 226SMBus host acting as a slave. 227It is the same form as Write Word, with the command code replaced by the 228alerting device's address. 229 230:: 231 232 [S] [HostAddr] [Wr] A [DevAddr] A [DataLow] A [DataHigh] A [P] 233 234This is implemented in the following way in the Linux kernel: 235 236* I2C bus drivers which support SMBus Host Notify should report 237 I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_HOST_NOTIFY. 238* I2C bus drivers trigger SMBus Host Notify by a call to 239 i2c_handle_smbus_host_notify(). 240* I2C drivers for devices which can trigger SMBus Host Notify will have 241 client->irq assigned to a Host Notify IRQ if noone else specified an other. 242 243There is currently no way to retrieve the data parameter from the client. 244 245 246Packet Error Checking (PEC) 247=========================== 248 249Packet Error Checking was introduced in Revision 1.1 of the specification. 250 251PEC adds a CRC-8 error-checking byte to transfers using it, immediately 252before the terminating STOP. 253 254 255Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) 256================================= 257 258The Address Resolution Protocol was introduced in Revision 2.0 of 259the specification. It is a higher-layer protocol which uses the 260messages above. 261 262ARP adds device enumeration and dynamic address assignment to 263the protocol. All ARP communications use slave address 0x61 and 264require PEC checksums. 265 266 267SMBus Alert 268=========== 269 270SMBus Alert was introduced in Revision 1.0 of the specification. 271 272The SMBus alert protocol allows several SMBus slave devices to share a 273single interrupt pin on the SMBus master, while still allowing the master 274to know which slave triggered the interrupt. 275 276This is implemented the following way in the Linux kernel: 277 278* I2C bus drivers which support SMBus alert should call 279 i2c_new_smbus_alert_device() to install SMBus alert support. 280* I2C drivers for devices which can trigger SMBus alerts should implement 281 the optional alert() callback. 282 283 284I2C Block Transactions 285====================== 286 287The following I2C block transactions are similar to the SMBus Block Read 288and Write operations, except these do not have a Count byte. They are 289supported by the SMBus layer and are described here for completeness, but 290they are *NOT* defined by the SMBus specification. 291 292I2C block transactions do not limit the number of bytes transferred 293but the SMBus layer places a limit of 32 bytes. 294 295 296I2C Block Read 297============== 298 299Implemented by i2c_smbus_read_i2c_block_data() 300 301This command reads a block of bytes from a device, from a 302designated register that is specified through the Comm byte:: 303 304 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] 305 Sr Addr Rd [A] [Data] A [Data] A ... A [Data] NA P 306 307Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_READ_I2C_BLOCK 308 309 310I2C Block Write 311=============== 312 313Implemented by i2c_smbus_write_i2c_block_data() 314 315The opposite of the Block Read command, this writes bytes to 316a device, to a designated register that is specified through the 317Comm byte. Note that command lengths of 0, 2, or more bytes are 318supported as they are indistinguishable from data. 319 320:: 321 322 S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Data [A] Data [A] ... [A] Data [A] P 323 324Functionality flag: I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WRITE_I2C_BLOCK