Which serial communication bus is widely used on computer motherboards for low-speed communication with monitoring sensors, fan controllers, and memory SPD EEPROMs, using just two signal lines (SDA and SCL)?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: C. I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) / SMBus
- Step 1: Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C), developed by Philips, and its PC derivative SMBus (System Management Bus) enable multi-device communication over minimal circuit traces.
- Step 2: Operating with a Serial Data line (SDA) and a Serial Clock line (SCL) pulled up to VCC, I2C enables a master controller to address and query thermal sensors and DIMM SPD chips.
Answer
I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) / SMBus
Why not the others: 'SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface)' SPI uses four wires (MOSI, MISO, SCK, CS) and operates at higher clock speeds without in-band device addressing; 'CAN Bus (Controller Area Network)' CAN bus is a differential two-wire automotive and industrial protocol, not a standard motherboard sensor bus; 'UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter)' UART is a point-to-point asynchronous two-wire interface (TX and RX) lacking clock-synchronized master-slave addressing.
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