I2C Monitoring / Debugging Tools

Using a regular scope to monitor the I2C bus is rather tough. When you are in control then you can easily generate a trigger for the scope. If you are not in control (in an existing system), then things get more complicated.

You will need a storage scope to monitor the activity on the bus. If you need to monitor a system with different slaves then you will need some means of discriminator to filter out only the transmission you want.

Commercial monitoring / debugging tools

There are a number of debugging tools out there which can monitor an I2C bus:

Company: Philips Semiconductors

Product Name: Development tools for 8048 and 8051-based systems

Product Description: Philips Semiconductors has developed a number of demonstration boards for analysis and testing of I2C-bus devices. The demonstration boards connect via a cable to the Centronics printer port of a PC and have a 4-stake I2C-bus connector for convenient lab use. Software supplied with each board provides interactive control of devices on the I2C-bus and allows the user to construct, send and receive I2C messages.

Company: Micro Computer Control Corporation

Product Name: I2C Bus Monitor MIIC-101

Product Description:

  • Stand Alone or Remote I2C Bus, ACCESS.bus, and SMBus Troubleshooting Tool.
  • Real Time Trace to 100 kbit/s.
  • Supports General Calls, and Multi-Master/Multi-Slave Addressing.
  • Displays Start/Stop Events, Device Addresses, Read/Write Requests, Acknowledgements, and Data.
  • Optional I2C Analyzer Software Package.

Company: Calibre

Product name: I2C bus communication adapters & software tools for PCs

Company: The Boardshop

Product Names:

Company: telos EDV Systementwicklung

Product Name: Tracii

Product Description:

  • Tracii operates as I2C Multi-master, Slave or Tracer in I2C Standard- and Fast-mode
  • Connected to the PC via parallel port
  • Bitrates can be set by software between 123 bit/s and 400 kBit/s
  • High transfer rates due to double buffering technology using on-board memory
  • Analysing the bus even with 400 kbit/s without clock-stretching
  • Trigger output for I²C events start/stop/ack and frame error
  • Several software packages are available. Windows support from Windows 95 to XP

Product Name: Connii - I2C Fast Mode Interface for USB

Product Description:

  • Connii operates as I2C Single-master in I2C Standard- and Fast-mode.
  • Connected to the PC via USB
  • C and Java applications are accessing Connii via application programming interfaces APIs
  • On Windows platforms Connii device functions are also provided as COM object which is accessible via Visual Basic
  • Labview support with the supplied VI's.
  • Linux support

Product Name: Tracii XL - High End I2C Interface / Monitor with high-speed Hs I2C support

Product Description:

  • High-end I2C interface for Master- and Trace-mode. Connected to the PC via USB.
  • Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP support.
  • Supports all I2C transfer modes: standard, fast and the new high-speed HS mode with up to 2 Mbit/s.
    Tracii XL is the only commercial I2C interface on the market supporting this new mode. And it can even monitor the high-speed I2C bus .
  • Controllable I2C transfer speed of 200 bit/s to 2MBit/s with optional behaviour according to the HS mode specification.
  • Variable termination: 992 .. 10040 Ohm. Optional 270 Ohm termination for boosting SCL according to the HS specification. I2C bus voltages from 1,2V to 5,5V. Adjustable I2C levels for logical one and zero.
  • Digital Tracer: Time measurement - time stamps - for every byte or event (start / stop condition) in frame based mode.
  • Analog Tracer: Dual A/D converter with sampling rates of 24 kHz to 12MHz.
  • 64 kSamples stored per SDA / SCL with 8 bit and max 5,5 Volts.
  • Pre-trigger with 0 to 50%, i.e. 32767 samples equal to 2.7ms at 12MHz.
  • Application interfaces with .NET support. Modern I2C Studio included.
  • No jumpers, all features are software controlled.
  • Powered by the USB bus.
  • Future-proof product: Firmware is completely downloaded via USB.

Company: Total Phase, Inc.

Product Name: Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter

Product Name: Beagle I2C/SPI Protocol Analyzer

Product Description:

  • The only host adapter on the market that supports fast I2C and SPI over USB.
  • I2C Support: 100/400 khz I2C at variable bitrates of (35-663 kpbs), master send and receive, asynchronous slave transmit and receive.
  • SPI Support: up to 8 Mbps transmission rates, up to 4 Mbps slave reception rate, full duplex master transmit/receive, asynchronous slave transmit/receive.
  • Connects as a full-speed USB device to the host computer.
  • Powered by USB, eliminating power adaptors.
  • Software API is Linux and Windows compatible and easy to integrate. You can download the API now and see for yourself.
  • Firmware is completely field upgradeable through USB.
  • Download the Data Sheet for all the details.

Company: Yokogawa Corp. of America

Product Name: DL1600 I2C/SPI Bus Analyzer

Product Description:

  • Full function Digital Oscilloscope with I2C triggering and analysis capabilities.
  • Capture desired data using built-in I2C trigger. Data is then automatically decoded and displayed.
  • Using the digital oscilloscope functionality you can also analyze signal quality at the same time.
  • Simultaneously analyze two I2C buses with 4 channels (SCL1, SDA1, SCL2, SDA2).
  • Built-in long memory allows for capturing up to 40,000 bytes of data.
  • SPI analysis is also included in this package.
  • It's like having three instruments in one.

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