MIPI I3C—and its publicly available counterpart, MIPI I3C Basic—is a versatile, two-wire serial bus specification designed to connect peripherals to microcontrollers with high efficiency. As the evolutionary successor to I2C, MIPI I3C integrates the strengths of I2C, SPI, and UART, offering a powerful upgrade path with higher performance, lower power consumption, and reduced pin count.
This presentation provides a practical introduction to MIPI I3C, highlighting its value across a range of applications—from sensor control and memory sideband channels to server management, always-on imaging, debug communications, touchscreen interfaces, and power management.
This session should equip you with a solid understanding of how MIPI I3C can enhance system performance and simplify integration, including:
• The distinction between MIPI I3C and I3C Basic
• I3C bus configurations and device roles (primary/secondary controllers, I2C targets, bridging and routing devices)
• High-throughput capabilities, including double data rate and multi-lane capability
• Main bus transactions and command codes
• Use of dynamic addressing for simpler system design and streamlined driver development
• Efficient data acquisition via in-band interrupts
• Use of “hot join” to attach devices after the I3C bus is configured