Making the fast mode faster

The I2C fast mode was originally specified to run at 400 khz. So what keeps people for ignoring this 400 kilobit limit and run the same bus with the same logic at higher speeds? There are a couple of factors which limit the maximum speed on the bus. First, there’s the capacitance which introduces a rise time for the signals. As a „counter measure“ the current on the bus can be increased by lowering the resistor values for the termination pull-ups.

Secondly, the bus has some timing tolerances and if the speed is increased these tolerances need to be more restrictive. The Fast-mode plus specification FM+ introduced by Philips Semiconductors (now: NXP) in April 2006 defines such a bus with a maximum speed of 1 Mhz. Unlike the high speed mode there is no additional logic to implement. Therefore, fast-mode plus devices are downward compatible with standard and fast-mode devices. In fact, many I2C slaves on the market like RAMs and EEPROMs will already tolerate higher bus frequencies.

The specification for FM+ is now part of the current I²C-bus specifiation and user manual (document UM10204 from NXP), available from NXP.