Audio bus system for automotive applications

Analog Devices Automotive Audio Bus (A2B) System comprises of a single master and at least one slave, where the transceiver at the host controller is the master. The master transceiver generates synchronization, clock, and framing for all slave nodes and can be programmable over a control bus (I2C) for configuration and readback. An extension of this control bus is embedded in the A2B data stream, which allows the host to access the slave transceiver directly registering any I2C-connected peripherals on slave nodes. Transceivers can connect straight to PDM microphones and numerous peripherals via I2C and a multichannel I2S/TDM interface.

The transceiver also supports an A2B bus powering option, where the master node provides voltage and current to the slave nodes over the same daisy-chained, twisted-pair wire cable as employed for the communication link. This removes the requirement for power supply on bus-powered slave nodes. Due to the many configurations that are conceivable for a given A2B system, many evaluation platforms can be employed in combination to verify system operation.