27.2.2 Electrical Interconnection

As depicted in the TWI Bus Definition, both bus lines are connected to the positive supply voltage through pull-up resistors. The bus drivers of all TWI-compliant devices are open-drain or open-collector. This implements a wired-AND function which is essential to the operation of the interface. A low level on a TWI bus line is generated when one or more TWI devices output a zero. A high level is output when all TWI devices tri-state their outputs, allowing the pull-up resistors to pull the line high. Note that all AVR devices connected to the TWI bus must be powered in order to allow any bus operation.

The number of devices that can be connected to the bus is only limited by the bus capacitance limit of 400pF and the 7-bit slave address space. Two different sets of specifications are presented there, one relevant for bus speeds below 100kHz, and one valid for bus speeds up to 400kHz.