17-07-03 12:34
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The System Management Bus is a two-wire interface through which simple power-related chips can communicate with the rest of the system. It uses I2C as its backbone
A system using SMB passes messages to and from devices instead of tripping individual control lines.
With the SMBus, a device can provide manufacturer information, tell the system what its model/part number is, save its state for a suspend event, report
different types of errors, accept control parameters, and return its status.
Since SMB uses i²c (with some more definition on timing) as underlying technology, such applications can be monitored with Tracii, just like any other high-level protocol which is based on the i²c standard.
Unlike i²c, the SMBus defines a minimum clock speed ans some other timing parameters while not allowing for speeds higher than 100 bkit.
The timestamp feature of Tracii is especially useful to verify that the timing is according to the specification of the SMBus.
A detailed comparison between the two buses can be found at:
http://dbserv.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm?appnote_number=356
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