Analogix participates in the development of MIPI I3C Basic v1.0

The MIPI Alliance, an industry body that creates interface standards for mobile-related industries, has released a basic version of the I3C interface specification for use in the mobile sector and beyond.

I3C Basic v1.0 is a royalty-free version of the standard that provides an upgrade path from inter-integrated circuit (I2C) serial digial interface. I2C is a protocol that allows multiple slave digital ICs to communicate with one or more master ICs via a two-wire interface.

The full I3C interface was released as version 1.0 in January 2017 (see  MIPI Alliance releases I3C interface specification ) and provides an interface protocol for connecting processors, sensors and many other devices that had previously used I2C. MIPI I3C Basic v1.0 provides 20 key features from MIPI I3C, including without royalty.

These features includes: backward compatibility with I2C; a multidrop bus that operates at 12.5MHz; in-band interrupts; dynamic address assignment; standardized discovery, and bus configuration and control.

"We have seen tremendous interest in I3C from the mobile ecosystem. Now, with I3C Basic, the broader developer community can immediately and efficiently begin using these capabilities as an alternative to I2C," said Joel Huloux, chairman of MIPI Alliance, in a statement. "In addition, we are already working with several standards organizations to integrate I3C Basic into their specifications. We believe it provides tremendous value to mobile and many other industries in multiple ways. For example, as the IoT market expands, it will serve a growing need to transfer data collected from a wide range of mechanical, environmental, biometric and health sensors."

MIPI member companies that participated in the development of MIPI I3C Basic v1.0 include: Analogix Semiconductor; Cadence Design Systems, Intel, Introspect Technology; InvenSense; L&T Technology Services; Lattice Semiconductor; NXP Semiconductors; STMicroelectronics: Synopsys and others.