XICOR X9221YSM, X9221YSI, X9221YS, X9221YPM, X9221YPI Datasheet

APPLICATION NOTES

AVAILABLE

AN20 • AN42 • AN44–48 • AN50 • AN52 • AN53 • AN73

Advance Information

X9221

Terminal Voltage ±5V, 64 Taps

Dual E2POT™ Nonvolatile Digital Potentiometer

X9221

FEATURES

• Two E

2

POTs in One Package

• Two-Wire Serial Interface

• Register Oriented Format

—Directly Write Wiper Position
—Read Wiper Position
—Store as Many as Four Positions per Pot

• Instruction Format

—Quick Transfer of Register Contents to

Resistor Array

• Low Power CMOS

• Direct Write Cell

—Endurance - 100,000 Writes per Register
—Register Data Retention - 100 years

• 8 Bytes of E

2

PROM memory

• 3 Resistor Array Values

—2KΩ to 50KΩ Mask Programmable

• Resolution: 64 Taps each Pot

• 20-Lead Plastic DIP and 20-Lead SOIC Packages

DESCRIPTION

The X9221 integrates two nonvolatile E2POT™ digitally
controlled potentiometers on a monolithic CMOS micro­circuit.

The X9221 contains two resistor arrays, each com­posed of 63 resistive elements. Between each element
and at either end are tap points accessible to the wiper
elements. The position of the wiper element on the array
is controlled by the user through the two-wire serial bus
interface.

Each resistor array has associated with it a wiper counter
register and four 8-bit data registers that can be directly
written and read by the user. The contents of the wiper
counter register control the position of the wiper on the
resistor array.

The data register may be read or written by the user. The
contents of the data registers can be transferred to the
wiper counter register to position the wiper. The current
wiper position can be transferred to any one of its
associated data registers.

FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM

SCL

SDA

A0
A1
A2
A3

INTERFACE

AND

CONTROL

CIRCUITRY

DATA

R0 R1

R2 R3

8

R0 R1

R2 R3

WIPER

COUNTER

REGISTER

(WCR)

WIPER

COUNTER

REGISTER

(WCR)

RESISTOR

ARRAY

POT 1

VH0

VL0
VW0

VH1

VL1
VW1

3079 ILL F07.1

© Xicor, Inc. 1994, 1995, 1996 Patents Pending. Characteristics subject to change without notice
3079-1.6 6/12/96 T1/C1/D0 NS

1

X9221

PIN DESCRIPTIONS

Host Interface Pins

Serial Clock (SCL)

The SCL input is used to clock data into and out of the
X9221.

Serial Data (SDA)

SDA is a bidirectional pin used to transfer data into and
out of the device. It is an open drain output and may be
wire-ORed with any number of open drain or open
collector outputs. An open drain output requires the use
of a pull-up resistor. For selecting typical values, refer
to the guidelines for calculating typical values on the
bus pull-up resistors graph.

Address

The Address inputs are used to set the least significant
4 bits of the 8-bit slave address. A match in the slave
address serial data stream must be made with the
Address input in order to initiate communication with the
X9221

Potentiometer Pins

VH (VH0 – VH1), VL (VL0 – VL1)

The VH and VL inputs are equivalent to the terminal
connections on either end of a mechanical potentiom­eter.

VW (VW0 – VW1)

The wiper outputs are equivalent to the wiper output of
a mechanical potentiometer.

PIN CONFIGURATION

DIP/SOIC

VW0

VL0

VH0

VW1

VL1

VH1
SDA
V

A0
A2

SS

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

X9221

20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11

V

CC

RES
RES
RES
A1
A3
SCL
RES
RES
RES

PIN NAMES

Symbol Description

SCL Serial Clock
SDA Serial Data
A0–A3 Address
VH0–V

H1, VL0–VL1

Potentiometers
(terminal equivalent)

VW0–V

W1

Potentiometers
(wiper equivalent)

RES Reserved (Do not connect)

3079 PGM T01

PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION

The X9221 is a highly integrated microcircuit incorporat­ing two resistor arrays, their associated registers and
counters and the serial interface logic providing direct
communication between the host and the E2POT poten­tiometers.

Serial Interface

The X9221 supports a bidirectional bus oriented proto­col. The protocol defines any device that sends data
onto the bus as a transmitter and the receiving device as
the receiver. The device controlling the transfer is a
master and the device being controlled is the slave. The
master will always initiate data transfers and provide the
clock for both transmit and receive operations. There­fore, the X9221 will be considered a slave device in all
applications.

Clock and Data Conventions

Data states on the SDA line can change only during SCL
LOW periods (t

). SDA state changes during SCL HIGH

LOW

are reserved for indicating start and stop conditions.

Start Condition

All commands to the X9221 are preceded by the start
condition, which is a HIGH to LOW transition of SDA
while SCL is HIGH (t

). The X9221 continuously

HIGH

monitors the SDA and SCL lines for the start condition
and will not respond to any command until this condition
is met.

Stop Condition

All communications must be terminated by a stop con­dition, which is a LOW to HIGH transition of SDA while
SCL is HIGH.

3079 ILL F01.1

2

X9221

Acknowledge

Acknowledge is a software convention used to provide
a positive handshake between the master and slave
devices on the bus to indicate the successful receipt of
data. The transmitting device, either the master or the
slave, will release the SDA bus after transmitting eight
bits. The master generates a ninth clock cycle and
during this period the receiver pulls the SDA line LOW to
acknowledge that it successfully received the eight bits
of data. See Figure 7.

The X9221 will respond with an acknowledge after
recognition of a start condition and its slave address and
once again after successful receipt of the command
byte. If the command is followed by a data byte the
X9221 will respond with a final acknowledge.

Array Description

The X9221 is comprised of two resistor arrays. Each
array contains 63 discrete resistive segments that are
connected in series. The physical ends of each array are
equivalent to the fixed terminals of a mechanical poten­tiometer (VH and VL inputs).

At both ends of each array and between each resistor
segment is a FET switch connected to the wiper (VW)
output. Within each individual array only one switch may
be turned on at a time. These switches are controlled by
the Wiper Counter Register (WCR). The six least signifi­cant bits of the WCR are decoded to select, and enable,
one of sixty-four switches.

The next four bits of the slave address are the device
address. The physical device address is defined by the
state of the A0-A3 inputs. The X9221 compares the
serial data stream with the address input state; a suc­cessful compare of all four address bits is required for
the X9221 to respond with an acknowledge.

Acknowledge Polling

The disabling of the inputs, during the internal non­volatile write operation, can be used to take advantage
of the typical 5ms E2PROM write cycle time. Once the
stop condition is issued to indicate the end of the
nonvolatile write command the X9221 initiates the inter­nal write cycle. ACK polling can be initiated immediately.
This involves issuing the start condition followed by the
device slave address. If the X9221 is still busy with the
write operation no ACK will be returned. If the X9221 has
completed the write operation an ACK will be returned
and the master can then proceed with the next
operation.

Flow 1. ACK Polling Sequence

NONVOLATILE WRITE

COMMAND COMPLETED

ENTER ACK POLLING

ISSUE

STAR T

The WCR may be written directly, or it can be changed
by transferring the contents of one of four associated
data registers into the WCR. These data registers and
the WCR can be read and written by the host system.

Device Addressing

Following a start condition the master must output the
address of the slave it is accessing. The most significant
four bits of the slave address are the device type
identifier (refer to Figure 1 below). For the X9221 this is
fixed as 0101[B].

Figure 1. Slave Address

DEVICE TYPE

IDENTIFIER

1

00

1

A3 A2 A1

DEVICE ADDRESS

A0

3079 ILL F08

ISSUE SLAVE

ADDRESS

ACK

RETURNED?

YES

FURTHER

OPERATION?

YES

ISSUE

INSTRUCTION

PROCEED

3

NO

NO

ISSUE STOP

ISSUE STOP

PROCEED

3079 ILL F18

X9221

Instruction Structure

The next byte sent to the X9221 contains the instruction
and register pointer information. The four most signifi­cant bits are the instruction. The next four bits point to
one of two pots and when applicable they point to one of
four associated registers. The format is shown below in
Figure 2.

Figure 2. Instruction Byte Format

POTENTIOMETER

SELECT

I1I2I3 I0 0 P0 R1 R0

INSTRUCTIONS

REGISTER

SELECT

3079 ILL F09.1

The four high order bits define the instruction. The sixth
bit (P0) selects which one of the two potentiometers is
to be affected by the instruction. The last two bits (R1
and R0) select one of the four registers that is to be acted
upon when a register oriented instruction is issued.

Four of the nine instructions end with the transmission of
the instruction byte. The basic sequence is illustrated in
Figure 3. These two-byte instructions exchange data
between the WCR and one of the data registers. A
transfer from a data register to a WCR is essentially a
write to a static RAM. The response of the wiper to this
action will be delayed t

. A transfer from WCR’s

STPWV

current wiper position to a data register is a write to
nonvolatile memory and takes a minimum of tWR to
complete. The transfer can occur between either poten­tiometer and their associated registers or it may occur
between both of the potentiometers and one of their
associated registers.

Four instructions require a three-byte sequence to
complete. These instructions transfer data between the
host and the X9221; either between the host and one of
the data registers or directly between the host and the
WCR. These instructions are: Read WCR, read the
current wiper position of the selected pot; Write WCR,
change current wiper position of the selected pot; Read
Data Register, read the contents of the selected non­volatile register; Write Data Register, write a new value
to the selected data register. The sequence of opera­tions is shown in Figure 4.

The Increment/Decrement command is different from
the other commands. Once the command is issued and
the X9221 has responded with an acknowledge, the
master can clock the selected wiper up and/or down in
one segment steps; thereby, providing a fine tuning
capability to the host. For each SCL clock pulse (t

HIGH

while SDA is HIGH, the selected wiper will move one
resistor segment towards the VH terminal. Similarly, for
each SCL clock pulse while SDA is LOW, the selected
wiper will move one resistor segment towards the V
terminal. A detailed illustration of the sequence and
timing for this operation are shown in Figures 5 and 6
respectively.

)

L

Figure 3. Two-Byte Command Sequence

SCL

SDA

S

0101A3A2A1A0A
T
A
R
T

I3 I2 I1 I0 0 P0 R1 R0 A
C
K

4

C
K

3079 ILL F10

S
T
O
P

X9221

Figure 4. Three-Byte Command Sequence

SCL

SDA

S

0101A3A2A1A0A
T
A

R
T

I3 I2 I1 I0 0 P0 R1 R0 A
C
K

Figure 5. Increment/Decrement Command Sequence

SCL

SDA

S

0101A3A2A1A0A
T
A

R

T

I3 I2 I1 I0 0 P0 R1 R0 A
C
K

0D5D4D3D2

0
C
K

X

X

I
C
K

I

N

N

C

C

1

2

D1 D0

D

I

E

N

C

C

1

n

S

A

T

C

O

K

P

3079 ILL F11

S

D

T

E

O

C

P

n

3079 ILL F12

Figure 6. Increment/Decrement Timing Limits

INC/DEC

CMD

ISSUED

SCL

SDA

V

W

VOLTAGE OUT

t

CLWV

3079 ILL F13

5