13.1. SMBus Overview¶
SMBus is a two-wire interface based upon the I²C protocol. The SMBus is a low-speed bus that provides positive addressing for devices, as well as bus arbitration. For more information, refer to the complete set of SMBus specifications published by the SBS-IF.
13.1.1. SMBus Slave Addresses¶
Slave addresses are specified using a 7-bit non-shifted notation. For example, the slave address of the Smart Battery Selector device would be specified as 0x0A (1010b), not 0x14 (10100b) as might be found in other documents. These two different forms of addresses result from the format in which addresses are transmitted on the SMBus.
During transmission over the physical SMBus, the slave address is formatted in an 8-bit block with bits 7-1 containing the address and bit 0 containing the read/write bit. ASL code, on the other hand, presents the slave address simply as a 7-bit value making it the responsibility of the OS (driver) to shift the value if needed. For example, the ASL value would have to be shifted left 1 bit before being written to the SMB_ADDR register in the EC based SMBus as described in Address Register, SMB_ADDR.
13.1.2. SMBus Protocols¶
There are seven possible command protocols for any given SMBus slave device, and a device may use any or all of the protocols to communicate. The protocols and associated access type indicators are listed below. Notice that the protocols values are similar to those defined for the EC-based SMBus in Protocol Register, SMB_PRTCL except that protocol pairs (for example, Read Byte, Write Byte) have been joined.
Value |
Type |
Description |
|---|---|---|
0x02 |
SMBQuick |
SMBus Read/Write Quick Protocol |
0x04 |
SMBSendReceive |
SMBus Send/Receive Byte Protocol |
0x06 |
SMBByte |
SMBus Read/Write Byte Protocol |
0x08 |
SMBWord |
SMBus Read/Write Word Protocol |
0x0A |
SMBBlock |
SMBus Read/Write Block Protocol |
0x0C |
SMBProcessCall |
SMBus Process Call Protocol |
0x0D |
SMBBlockProcessCall |
SMBus Write Block-Read Block Process Call Protocol |
All other protocol values are reserved.
Notice that bit 7 of the protocol value is used by this interface to indicate to the SMB-HC whether or not packet error checking (PEC) should be employed for a transaction. Packet error checking is described in section 7.4 of the System Management Bus Specification, Version 1.1. This highly desirable capability improves the reliability and robustness of SMBus communications.
The bit encoding of the protocol value is shown below. For example, the value 0x86 would be used to specify the PEC version of the SMBus Read/Write Byte protocol.
Fig. 13.1 Bit Encoding Example¶
Notice that bit 0 of the protocol value is always zero (even number hexadecimal values). In a manner similar to the slave address, software that implements the SMBus interface is responsible for setting this bit to indicate whether the transaction is a read (for example, Read Byte) or write (for example, Write Byte) operation.
For example, software implanting this interface for EC-SMBus segments would set bit 0 for read transactions. For the SMBByte protocol (0x06), this would result in the value 0x07 being placed into the SMB_PRTCL register (or 0x87 if PEC is requested) for write transactions.
13.1.3. SMBus Status Codes¶
The use of status codes helps AML determine whether an SMBus transaction was successful. In general, a status code of zero indicates success, while a non-zero value indicates failure. The SMBus interface uses the same status codes defined for the EC-SMBus (see Status Register, SMB_STS).
13.1.4. SMBus Command Values¶
SMBus devices may optionally support up to 256 device-specific commands. For these devices, each command value supported by the device is modeled by this interface as a separate virtual register. Protocols that do not transmit a command value (for example, Read/Write Quick and Send/Receive Byte) are modeled using a single virtual register (with a command value = 0x00).