ATA6602 ATMEL Corporation, ATA6602 Datasheet - Page 231

• Manufacturer Part Number: ATA6602
• Description: LIN and Microcontroller System-In-Package: LIN Transceiver, integrated 5V/50 mA voltage regulator, window watchdog and automotive AVR ATmega88 (8 kBytes Flash); green QFN48 package.
• Manufacturer: ATMEL Corporation

4.19.4
4921C–AUTO–01/07
Multi-master Bus Systems, Arbitration and Synchronization
The TWI protocol allows bus systems with several masters. Special concerns have been taken
in order to ensure that transmissions will proceed as normal, even if two or more masters initiate
a transmission at the same time. Two problems arise in multi-master systems:
The wired-ANDing of the bus lines is used to solve both these problems. The serial clocks from
all masters will be wired-ANDed, yielding a combined clock with a high period equal to the one
from the Master with the shortest high period. The low period of the combined clock is equal to
the low period of the Master with the longest low period. Note that all masters listen to the SCL
line, effectively starting to count their SCL high and low time-out periods when the combined
SCL line goes high or low, respectively.
Figure 4-83. SCL Synchronization Between Multiple Masters
• An algorithm must be implemented allowing only one of the masters to complete the
• Different masters may use different SCL frequencies. A scheme must be devised to
transmission. All other masters should cease transmission when they discover that they have
lost the selection process. This selection process is called arbitration. When a contending
master discovers that it has lost the arbitration process, it should immediately switch to Slave
mode to check whether it is being addressed by the winning master. The fact that multiple
masters have started transmission at the same time should not be detectable to the slaves,
i.e. the data being transferred on the bus must not be corrupted.
synchronize the serial clocks from all masters, in order to let the transmission proceed in a
lockstep fashion. This will facilitate the arbitration process.
SCL from
SCL from
Master A
Master B
SCL Bus
Line
TA
Counting Low Period
low
Masters Start
TB
low
ATA6602/ATA6603
TA
Counting High Period
high
Masters Start
TB
high
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