PCA9515A
I
2
C-bus repeater
Rev. 5 — 23 March 2012
Product data sheet
1. General description
The PCA9515A is a CMOS integrated circuit intended for application in I
2
C-bus and
SMBus systems.
While retaining all the operating modes and features of the I
2
C-bus system, it permits
extension of the I
2
C-bus by buffering both the data (SDA) and the clock (SCL) lines, thus
enabling two buses of 400 pF.
The I
2
C-bus capacitance limit of 400 pF restricts the number of devices and bus length.
Using the PCA9515A enables the system designer to isolate two halves of a bus, thus
more devices or longer length can be accommodated. It can also be used to run two
buses, one at 5 V and the other at 3.3 V or a 400 kHz and 100 kHz bus, where the
100 kHz bus is isolated when 400 kHz operation of the other is required.
Two or more PCA9515As cannot be put in series.
The PCA9515A design does not
allow this configuration. Since there is no direction pin, slightly different ‘legal’ low voltage
levels are used to avoid lock-up conditions between the input and the output. A ‘regular
LOW’ applied at the input of a PCA9515A will be propagated as a ‘buffered LOW’ with a
slightly higher value. When this ‘buffered LOW’ is applied to another PCA9515A,
PCA9516A or PCA9518/A in series, the second PCA9515A, PCA9516A or PCA9518/A
will not recognize it as a ‘regular LOW’ and will not propagate it as a ‘buffered LOW’ again.
The PCA9510/A, PCA9511/A, PCA9512/A, PCA9513/A, PCA9514/A cannot be used in
series with the PCA9515A, PCA9516A or PCA9518/A, but can be used in series with
themselves since they use shifting instead of static offsets to avoid lock-up conditions.
The output pull-down of each internal buffer is set for approximately 0.5 V, while the input
threshold of each internal buffer is set about 0.07 V lower, when the output is internally
driven LOW. This prevents a lock-up condition from occurring.
2. Features and benefits
2-channel, bidirectional buffer
I
2
C-bus and SMBus compatible
Active HIGH repeater enable input
Open-drain input/outputs
Lock-up free operation
Supports arbitration and clock stretching across the repeater
Accommodates Standard-mode and Fast-mode I
2
C-bus devices and multiple masters
Powered-off high-impedance I
2
C-bus pins
Operating supply voltage range of 2.3 V to 3.6 V
5.5 V tolerant I
2
C-bus and enable pins
NXP Semiconductors
PCA9515A
I
2
C-bus repeater
0 Hz to 400 kHz clock frequency (the maximum system operating frequency may be
less than 400 kHz because of the delays added by the repeater)
ESD protection exceeds 2000 V HBM per JESD22-A114 and 1000 V CDM per
JESD22-C101
Latch-up testing is done to JEDEC Standard JESD78 which exceeds 100 mA
Packages offered: SO8, TSSOP8 (MSOP8), HWSON8
3. Ordering information
Table 1.
Ordering information
T
amb
=
40
C to +85
C.
Type number
PCA9515AD
PCA9515ADP
PCA9515ATP
Topside
mark
PA9515A
9515A
15A
Package
Name
SO8
TSSOP8
[1]
HWSON8
Description
plastic small outline package; 8 leads; body width 3.9 mm
plastic thin shrink small outline package; 8 leads;
body width 3 mm
plastic thermal enhanced very very thin small outline package;
no leads; 8 terminals; body 2
3
0.8 mm
Version
SOT96-1
SOT505-1
SOT1069-2
[1]
Also known as MSOP8.
4. Functional diagram
V
CC
PCA9515A
SDA0
SDA1
SCL0
SCL1
pull-up
resistor
EN
002aad738
GND
Fig 1.
Functional diagram of PCA9515A
PCA9515A
All information provided in this document is subject to legal disclaimers.
© NXP B.V. 2012. All rights reserved.
Product data sheet
Rev. 5 — 23 March 2012
2 of 20
NXP Semiconductors
PCA9515A
I
2
C-bus repeater
5. Pinning information
5.1 Pinning
n.c.
SCL0
SDA0
GND
1
2
8
7
V
CC
SCL1
SDA1
EN
n.c.
SCL0
SDA0
GND
1
2
3
4
002aad737
8
7
V
CC
SCL1
SDA1
EN
PCA9515AD
3
4
002aad736
6
5
PCA9515ADP
6
5
Fig 2.
Pin configuration for SO8
Fig 3.
Pin configuration for TSSOP8
(MSOP8)
terminal 1
index area
SDA0
GND
EN
SDA1
1
2
3
4
PCA9515ATP
8
7
6
5
SCL0
n.c.
V
CC
SCL1
002aag783
Transparent top view
Fig 4.
Pin configuration for HWSON8
5.2 Pin description
Table 2.
Symbol
n.c.
SCL0
SDA0
GND
EN
SDA1
SCL1
V
CC
[1]
Pin description
Pin
SO8, TSSOP8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
HWSON8
7
8
1
2
[1]
3
4
5
6
not connected
serial clock bus 0; open-drain 5 V tolerant I/O
serial data bus 0; open-drain 5 V tolerant I/O
supply ground (0 V)
active HIGH repeater enable input
(internal pull-up with 100 k)
serial data bus 1; open-drain 5 V tolerant I/O
serial clock bus 1; open-drain 5 V tolerant I/O
supply voltage
Description
HWSON8 package die supply ground is connected to both GND pin and exposed center pad. GND pin
must be connected to supply ground for proper device operation. For enhanced thermal, electrical, and
board level performance, the exposed pad needs to be soldered to the board using a corresponding
thermal pad on the board and for proper head conduction through the board, thermal vias need to be
incorporated in the printed-circuit board in the thermal pad region.
PCA9515A
All information provided in this document is subject to legal disclaimers.
© NXP B.V. 2012. All rights reserved.
Product data sheet
Rev. 5 — 23 March 2012
3 of 20
NXP Semiconductors
PCA9515A
I
2
C-bus repeater
6. Functional description
Refer to
Figure 1 “Functional diagram of PCA9515A”.
The PCA9515A integrated circuit contains two identical buffer circuits which enable
I
2
C-bus and similar bus systems to be extended without degradation of system
performance.
The PCA9515A contains two bidirectional, open-drain buffers specifically designed to
support the standard LOW-level contention arbitration of the I
2
C-bus. Except during
arbitration or clock stretching, the PCA9515A acts like a pair of non-inverting, open-drain
buffers, one for SDA and one for SCL.
6.1 Enable
The EN pin is active HIGH with an internal pull-up and allows the user to select when the
repeater is active. This can be used to isolate a badly behaved slave on power-up until
after the system power-up reset. It should never change state during an I
2
C-bus operation
because disabling during a bus operation will hang the bus and enabling part way through
a bus cycle could confuse the I
2
C-bus parts being enabled.
The enable pin should only change state when the global bus and the repeater port are in
an idle state to prevent system failures.
6.2 I
2
C-bus systems
As with the standard I
2
C-bus system, pull-up resistors are required to provide the logic
HIGH levels on the buffered bus (standard open-collector configuration of the I
2
C-bus).
The size of these pull-up resistors depends on the system, but each side of the repeater
must have a pull-up resistor. This part designed to work with Standard-mode and
Fast-mode I
2
C-bus devices in addition to SMBus devices. Standard-mode I
2
C-bus
devices only specify 3 mA output drive; this limits the termination current to 3 mA in a
generic I
2
C-bus system where Standard-mode devices and multiple masters are possible.
Under certain conditions higher termination currents can be used.
Please see Application Note
AN255, I
2
C/SMBus Repeaters, Hubs and Expanders
for
additional information on sizing resistors and precautions when using more than one
PCA9515A/PCA9516A in a system or using the PCA9515A/PCA9516A in conjunction
with the P82B96.
PCA9515A
All information provided in this document is subject to legal disclaimers.
© NXP B.V. 2012. All rights reserved.
Product data sheet
Rev. 5 — 23 March 2012
4 of 20
NXP Semiconductors
PCA9515A
I
2
C-bus repeater
7. Application design-in information
A typical application is shown in
Figure 5.
In this example, the system master is running
on a 3.3 V I
2
C-bus while the slave is connected to a 5 V bus. Both buses run at 100 kHz
unless the slave bus is isolated and then the master bus can run at 400 kHz. Master
devices can be placed on either bus.
3.3 V
5V
10 kΩ
10 kΩ
10 kΩ
10 kΩ
V
CC
SDA
SCL
BUS
MASTER
400 kHz
SDA0
SCL0
SDA1
SCL1
SDA
SCL
SLAVE
100 kHz
PCA9515A
EN
bus 0
bus 1
002aad739
Fig 5.
Typical application
The PCA9515A is 5 V tolerant, so it does not require any additional circuitry to translate
between the different bus voltages.
When one side of the PCA9515A is pulled LOW by a device on the I
2
C-bus, a CMOS
hysteresis type input detects the falling edge and causes the internal driver on the other
side to turn on, thus causing the other side to also go LOW. The side driven LOW by the
PCA9515A will typically be at V
OL
= 0.5 V.
In order to illustrate what would be seen in a typical application, refer to
Figure 6
and
Figure 7.
If the bus master in
Figure 5
were to write to the slave through the PCA9515A,
we would see the waveform shown in
Figure 6
on bus 0. This looks like a normal I
2
C-bus
transmission until the falling edge of the eighth clock pulse. At that point, the master
releases the data line (SDA) while the slave pulls it LOW through the PCA9515A.
Because the V
OL
of the PCA9515A is typically round 0.5 V, a step in the SDA will be seen.
After the master has transmitted the ninth clock pulse, the slave releases the data line.
On the bus 1 side of the PCA9515A, the clock and data lines would have a positive offset
from ground equal to the V
OL
of the PCA9515A. After the eighth clock pulse the data line
will be pulled to the V
OL
of the slave device, which is very close to ground in this example.
It is important to note that any arbitration or clock stretching events on bus 1 require that
the V
OL
of the PCA9515A (see V
OL
V
ILc
in
Section 9 “Static characteristics”)
to be
recognized by the PCA9515A and then transmitted to bus 0.
PCA9515A
All information provided in this document is subject to legal disclaimers.
© NXP B.V. 2012. All rights reserved.
Product data sheet
Rev. 5 — 23 March 2012
5 of 20