1 General description
The PCA9600 is designed to isolate I2C-bus capacitance, allowing long buses to be
driven in point-to-point or multipoint applications of up to 4 000 pF. The PCA9600 is
a higher-speed version of the P82B96. It creates a non-latching, bidirectional, logic
interface between a normal I2C-bus and a range of other higher capacitance or different
voltage bus configurations. It can operate at speeds up to at least 1 MHz, and the high
drive side is compatible with the Fast-mode Plus (Fm+) specifications.
The PCA9600 features temperature-stabilized logic voltage levels at its SX/SY interface
making it suitable for interfacing with buses that have non I2C-bus-compliant logic levels
such as SMBus, PMBus, or with microprocessors that use those same TTL logic levels.
The separation of the bidirectional I2C-bus signals into unidirectional TX and RX signals
enables the SDA and SCL signals to be transmitted via balanced transmission lines
(twisted pairs), or with galvanic isolation using opto or magnetic coupling. The TX and RX
signals may be connected together to provide a normal bidirectional signal.
2 Features and benefits
• Bidirectional data transfer of I2C-bus signals
• Isolates capacitance allowing 400 pF on SX/SY side and 4 000 pF on TX/TY side
• TX/TY outputs have 60 mA sink capability for driving low-impedance or high-capacitive
buses
• 1 MHz operation on up to 20 meters of wire (see AN10658)
• Supply voltage range of 2.5 V to 15 V with I2C-bus logic levels on SX/SY side
independent of supply voltage
• Splits I2C-bus signal into pairs of forward/reverse TX/RX, TY/RY signals for interface
with opto-electrical isolators and similar devices that need unidirectional input and
output signal paths
• Low power supply current
• ESD protection exceeds 3500 V HBM per JESD22-A114 and 1400 V CDM per
JESD22-C101
• Latch-up testing is done to JEDEC Standard JESD78 which exceeds 100 mA
• Packages offered: SO8 and TSSOP8 (MSOP8)
3 Applications
• Interface between I2C-buses operating at different logic levels (for example, 5 V and
3 V or 15 V)
• Interface between I2C-bus and SMBus (350 μA) standard or Fm+ standard
• Simple conversion of I2C-bus SDA or SCL signals to multi-drop differential bus
hardware, for example, via compatible PCA82C250