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Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001SMBus Protocol Summary
2======================
3The following is a summary of the SMBus protocol. It applies to
4all revisions of the protocol (1.0, 1.1, and 2.0).
5Certain protocol features which are not supported by
6this package are briefly described at the end of this document.
7
8Some adapters understand only the SMBus (System Management Bus) protocol,
9which is a subset from the I2C protocol. Fortunately, many devices use
10only the same subset, which makes it possible to put them on an SMBus.
11If you write a driver for some I2C device, please try to use the SMBus
12commands if at all possible (if the device uses only that subset of the
13I2C protocol). This makes it possible to use the device driver on both
14SMBus adapters and I2C adapters (the SMBus command set is automatically
15translated to I2C on I2C adapters, but plain I2C commands can not be
16handled at all on most pure SMBus adapters).
17
18Below is a list of SMBus commands.
19
20Key to symbols
21==============
22
23S (1 bit) : Start bit
24P (1 bit) : Stop bit
25Rd/Wr (1 bit) : Read/Write bit. Rd equals 1, Wr equals 0.
26A, NA (1 bit) : Accept and reverse accept bit.
27Addr (7 bits): I2C 7 bit address. Note that this can be expanded as usual to
28 get a 10 bit I2C address.
29Comm (8 bits): Command byte, a data byte which often selects a register on
30 the device.
31Data (8 bits): A plain data byte. Sometimes, I write DataLow, DataHigh
32 for 16 bit data.
33Count (8 bits): A data byte containing the length of a block operation.
34
35[..]: Data sent by I2C device, as opposed to data sent by the host adapter.
36
37
38SMBus Write Quick
39=================
40
41This sends a single bit to the device, at the place of the Rd/Wr bit.
42There is no equivalent Read Quick command.
43
44A Addr Rd/Wr [A] P
45
46
47SMBus Read Byte
48===============
49
50This reads a single byte from a device, without specifying a device
51register. Some devices are so simple that this interface is enough; for
52others, it is a shorthand if you want to read the same register as in
53the previous SMBus command.
54
55S Addr Rd [A] [Data] NA P
56
57
58SMBus Write Byte
59================
60
61This is the reverse of Read Byte: it sends a single byte to a device.
62See Read Byte for more information.
63
64S Addr Wr [A] Data [A] P
65
66
67SMBus Read Byte Data
68====================
69
70This reads a single byte from a device, from a designated register.
71The register is specified through the Comm byte.
72
73S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] S Addr Rd [A] [Data] NA P
74
75
76SMBus Read Word Data
77====================
78
79This command is very like Read Byte Data; again, data is read from a
80device, from a designated register that is specified through the Comm
81byte. But this time, the data is a complete word (16 bits).
82
83S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] S Addr Rd [A] [DataLow] A [DataHigh] NA P
84
85
86SMBus Write Byte Data
87=====================
88
89This writes a single byte to a device, to a designated register. The
90register is specified through the Comm byte. This is the opposite of
91the Read Byte Data command.
92
93S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Data [A] P
94
95
96SMBus Write Word Data
97=====================
98
99This is the opposite operation of the Read Word Data command. 16 bits
100of data is read from a device, from a designated register that is
101specified through the Comm byte.
102
103S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] DataLow [A] DataHigh [A] P
104
105
106SMBus Process Call
107==================
108
109This command selects a device register (through the Comm byte), sends
11016 bits of data to it, and reads 16 bits of data in return.
111
112S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] DataLow [A] DataHigh [A]
113 S Addr Rd [A] [DataLow] A [DataHigh] NA P
114
115
116SMBus Block Read
117================
118
119This command reads a block of up to 32 bytes from a device, from a
120designated register that is specified through the Comm byte. The amount
121of data is specified by the device in the Count byte.
122
123S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A]
124 S Addr Rd [A] [Count] A [Data] A [Data] A ... A [Data] NA P
125
126
127SMBus Block Write
128=================
129
130The opposite of the Block Read command, this writes up to 32 bytes to
131a device, to a designated register that is specified through the
132Comm byte. The amount of data is specified in the Count byte.
133
134S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Count [A] Data [A] Data [A] ... [A] Data [A] P
135
136
137SMBus Block Process Call
138========================
139
140SMBus Block Process Call was introduced in Revision 2.0 of the specification.
141
142This command selects a device register (through the Comm byte), sends
1431 to 31 bytes of data to it, and reads 1 to 31 bytes of data in return.
144
145S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Count [A] Data [A] ...
146 S Addr Rd [A] [Count] A [Data] ... A P
147
148
149SMBus Host Notify
150=================
151
152This command is sent from a SMBus device acting as a master to the
153SMBus host acting as a slave.
154It is the same form as Write Word, with the command code replaced by the
155alerting device's address.
156
157[S] [HostAddr] [Wr] A [DevAddr] A [DataLow] A [DataHigh] A [P]
158
159
160Packet Error Checking (PEC)
161===========================
162Packet Error Checking was introduced in Revision 1.1 of the specification.
163
164PEC adds a CRC-8 error-checking byte to all transfers.
165
166
167Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
168=================================
169The Address Resolution Protocol was introduced in Revision 2.0 of
170the specification. It is a higher-layer protocol which uses the
171messages above.
172
173ARP adds device enumeration and dynamic address assignment to
174the protocol. All ARP communications use slave address 0x61 and
175require PEC checksums.
176
177
178I2C Block Transactions
179======================
180The following I2C block transactions are supported by the
181SMBus layer and are described here for completeness.
182I2C block transactions do not limit the number of bytes transferred
183but the SMBus layer places a limit of 32 bytes.
184
185
186I2C Block Read
187==============
188
189This command reads a block of bytes from a device, from a
190designated register that is specified through the Comm byte.
191
192S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A]
193 S Addr Rd [A] [Data] A [Data] A ... A [Data] NA P
194
195
196I2C Block Read (2 Comm bytes)
197=============================
198
199This command reads a block of bytes from a device, from a
200designated register that is specified through the two Comm bytes.
201
202S Addr Wr [A] Comm1 [A] Comm2 [A]
203 S Addr Rd [A] [Data] A [Data] A ... A [Data] NA P
204
205
206I2C Block Write
207===============
208
209The opposite of the Block Read command, this writes bytes to
210a device, to a designated register that is specified through the
211Comm byte. Note that command lengths of 0, 2, or more bytes are
212supported as they are indistinguishable from data.
213
214S Addr Wr [A] Comm [A] Data [A] Data [A] ... [A] Data [A] P
215
216