AN 486: SPI to I2C Using Altera MAX Series

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ID 683611
Date 9/22/2014
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. SPI to I2C Using Altera MAX Series
1. SPI to I2C Using Altera MAX Series x
1.1. Serial Peripheral Interface 1.2. I2C Interface 1.3. Implementing the Design 1.4. Document Revision History
1. SPI to I2C Using Altera MAX Series

1.1. Serial Peripheral Interface

The SPI bus has only one master, which is connected to many slaves.

Altera device acts as one of the slaves to the SPI master device.

Figure 2. Timing Diagram for SPI
Table 1.  SPI Interface PinsThe table below describes the SPI pins.
Signal Direction Function
SS Input (active low) Slave select
SCLK Input SPI cloc
MISO Output Master-in Slave-out
MOSI Output Master-out Slave-in
The SPI sends:
  • command register (8 bits)
  • data in (8 bits)
The SPI receives:
  • status register (8 bits)
  • data out (8 bits)

The SPI word length is fixed at 16 bits.

In every SPI word, the command register dictates the functions on the I2C bus, and the data in holds the data to be sent by the I2C bus. Similarly, the last bit of the status register is the acknowledge bit and the data out is the data received over the I2C line in the previous I2C cycle.

At the end of every SPI bus:

  • The slave select line goes high; indicating a word complete.
  • The master executes an I2C bus as per the value of command register at that time.

After a fixed delay, depending on the frequency of the I2C SCL, another SPI word can be sent. The minimum delay between two SPI words is the I2C SCL clock frequency.

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