The PCA9600 is designed to isolate I²C-bus capacitance, allowing long buses to be
driven in point-to-point or multipoint applications of up to 4000 pF. The PCA9600 is a
higher-speed version of the P82B96. It creates a non-latching, bidirectional, logic interface
between a normal I²C-bus and a range of other higher capacitance or different voltage
bus configurations. It can operate at speeds up to at least 1 MHz, and the high drive side
is compatible with the Fast-mode Plus (Fm+) specifications.
The PCA9600 features temperature-stabilized logic voltage levels at its SX/SY interface
making it suitable for interfacing with buses that have non I²C-bus-compliant logic levels
such as SMBus, PMBus, or with microprocessors that use those same TTL logic levels.
The separation of the bidirectional I²C-bus signals into unidirectional TX and RX signals
enables the SDA and SCL signals to be transmitted via balanced transmission lines
(twisted pairs), or with galvanic isolation using opto or magnetic coupling. The TX and RX
signals may be connected together to provide a normal bidirectional signal.
