QUALCOMM Incorporated
TUNNELING OVER UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS (USB) SIDEBAND CHANNEL

Abstract:

Tunneling over Universal Serial Bus (USB) sideband channel systems and methods provide a way to tunnel I2C transactions between a master and slaves over USB 4.0 sideband channels. More particularly, a slave address table lookup (SATL) circuit is added to a host circuit. Signals from an I2C bus are received at the host, and any address associated with a destination is translated by the SATL. The translated address is passed to a low-speed interface associated with a sideband channel in the host circuit. Signals received at the low-speed interface are likewise reverse translated in the SATL and then sent out through the I2C bus. In this fashion, low-speed I2C signals may be routed over the sideband channel through the low-speed sideband interface portion of the USB interface.