The Philips family of Multiplexers and Switches consists of bi-directional translating switches controlled via the I2C or SMBus to fan out an upstream SCL/SDA pair to 2, 4 or 8 downstream channels of SCx/SDx pairs. The Multiplexers allow only one downstream channel to be selected at a time, while the Switches allow any individual downstream channel or combination of downstream channels to be selected, depending on the content of the programmable control register. Once one or several channels have been selected, the device acts as a wire, allowing the master on the upstream channel to send commands to devices on all the active downstream channels, and devices on the active downstream channels to communicate with each other and the master. External pull-up resistors are used to pull each individual channel up to the desired voltage level. Combined interrupt output and hardware reset input are device options that are featured.
