Product Description
Why use an Aardvark I2C Host Adapter?
The Total Phase Aardvark has been the number one choice of system developers worldwide since the early 2000s. Major electronics companies use it as part of their in-house development and test activities, and frequently ship it with development kits and evaluation platforms to worldwide semiconductor clients.
The Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter is a fast and powerful I2C bus and SPI bus host adapter through USB. It allows a developer to interface a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X PC via USB to a downstream embedded system environment and transfer serial messages using the I2C and SPI protocols.
The USB interface also provides scheduled updates of this adapter and makes this tool future-proof whilst being field-installable. The Total Phase Aardvark I2C/SPI Interface is a cost-effective debugging tool and very efficient for companies and organisations that are planning to increase their productivity.
I2C Interface
- True 800 kbps performance over higher bandwidth USB versus slower RS-232
- Supports standard mode (100 kbps) and fast (400 kbps) mode as well as various speeds ranging from 1 kHz to 800 kHz
- Supports inter-bit and inter-byte clock stretching
- Supports multi-master
- Master transmit and receive
- Asynchronous slave transmit and receive
- Software configurable I2C pull-up resistors
- Software configurable target power pins to power downstream devices
- Repeated Start, 10-bit slave addressing, and Combined Format transactions
SPI Interface
- Operates in master or slave mode
- Up to 8 Mbps master signalling rate
- Up to 4 Mbps slave signalling rate
- Full duplex master transmit/receive
- Asynchronous slave transmit/receive
- Software configurable target power pins to power downstream devices
- Software configurable Slave Select (SS) polarity in master mode
Can my Aardvark be Upgraded?
Yes, The Aardvark firmware is stored in internal Flash Memory, which can be updated, free of charge when new firmware is released by Total Phase. Total Phase offers this free service which secures your investment in their products.
How Can I Use The Aardvark I2C Host Adapter?
What is an SPI Interface?
The SPI or Serial Peripheral Interface can operate at much faster data rates than the I2C Bus. The Aardvark will operate up to 8MHz as a Bus Master.
Each device has its own Chip Select Line, activated by the Bus Master. The interface consists of four lines:
- MOSI, or Master Data Output
- MISO, or Master Data Input
- SCLK, or Serial Clock
- NSS, a Slave enabled signal, controlled by the Bus Master, often referred to as Chip Select.
Compatible with Other Interfaces
The Aardvark I2C/SPI Interface can also be used to drive other interface types including:.
- Display Data Channel (DDC)
- System Management Bus (SMBus)
- Power Management Bus (PMBus)
- Smart Battery Bus (SBBus)
- Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
- Two-Wire Interface (TWI)
Application Software
The Aardvark is a very versatile interface, capable of being controlled by a range of application software. Total Phase provides ready-to-run applications for device control and memory programming and ready-build interfaces to third-party software such as LabVIEW and your own applications written in C/C++, C#, .NET, Python and Visual Basic.
Control Center Serial Software
The Control Center Serial Software has been developed by Total Phase to support the Aardvark I2C/SPI, Cheetah SPI Interface, and PROMIRA Serial Platform.
The software allows you to create high-level scripts for reading and writing to devices via the Aardvark. I2C and SPI messages can also be downloaded for subsequent analysis and data patterns loaded for transmission over the interface under script-control.
The software is regularly updated and supplied free of charge by Total Phase for download.
Flash Center Software
The Total Phase Flash Center software allows you to read, program, erase and erase a wide range of I2C and SPI-based EEPROMS and Flash memory devices.
The software is fully compatible with the Aardvark I2C/SPI Interface, Cheetah SPI Interface and PROMIRA Serial Platform. Take a look at the Flash Center User Manual.
