I2C Communication is a part and parcel of embedded system design; especially for systems where the priority is not focused on achieving very high clock rates. So, it should come as no surprise that I2C is widely used in low-speed and low-cost applications. The technology was first conceived in 1982 and in spite of being three decades old, the popularity and applications of I2C haven't decreased in number. Even today, I2C protocol powers a vast majority of entry-level and mid-level embedded system designs and it is likely to continue to do so in the near future.

Previously, I shared information on the hazards of improperly implemented USB Type-C.  Now, here are a few additional examples and ways to utilize advanced cable properly and work with USB power. In this article by Phandroid, the battery of a Galaxy Note 7 with USB Type-C blew up from the side consequently melting the device. The official cause has not been determined, but it looks like a USB Type-Micro B to USB Type-C adapter may have been involved.

Earlier this month we announced that we would start shipping our new Advanced Cable Tester at the end of September.  As we developed this product,  we were thinking about the potential impact of faulty USB Type-C cables.  First and foremost was the potential safety hazard associated with up to 20V and 5 Amps.  Benson Leung of Google made one example famous:

We plan to use a host adapter to exercise a target board that we are developing. This board has two chips on an SPI bus.  The setup includes a second board (that we are also developing) that will connect to the host adapter and pass the SPI to the target board.

As Linux, the open-source operating system created by Linus Torvalds turns 25 today, we can’t help but marvel at its incredible journey.  Twenty-five years ago, Linus Torvalds announced his project on the comp.os.minx message board, requesting feedback from coders on an Operating system, which according to him, was “just a hobby.” However, with 22 million lines of code, the Linux ecosystem turned out to be much bigger than anything Torvalds ever imagined in its 1991 beginnings.

Video protocols such as HDMI, DVI and VGA use the I2C bus for a display control channel, as well as a data display channel.

The time is here, as we move towards ubiquitous computing, almost everything from a toaster to a coffee maker is powered by an embedded system. So, if you are an embedded engineer, you ought to rejoice at the thought of the sheer number of opportunities open to you.

We’re testing our new design, a Type-C captured cable AC home charger, with your USB Power Delivery Analyzer.

Over the three days of the Flash Memory Summit Expo, the crowds at the show looked a bit larger than last year. There was plenty of interesting and innovative technology on the Expo Floor including - Flash in HDD, Client and Enterprise level SDDs, and even NVDIMM’s.

I am integrating a proprietary device that uses a custom class to communicate with the host driver. For this project, I need a class decoder to interpret the packets received by the analyzer – what do you advise? I’m using the Beagle USB 480 Protocol Analyzer.