I²C
I²C ("i-squared cee"; Inter-Integrated Circuit; generically referred to as "two-wire interface") is a multi-master serial single-ended computer bus invented by Philips that is used to attach low-speed peripherals to a motherboard, embedded system, cellphone, or other electronic device. Since the mid 1990s, several competitors (e.g., Siemens AG (later Infineon Technologies AG), NEC, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics (formerly SGS-Thomson), Motorola (later Freescale), Intersil, etc.) brought I²C products on the market, which are fully compatible with the NXP (formerly Philips's semiconductor division) I²C-system. As of October 10, 2006, no licensing fees are required to implement the I²C protocol. However, fees are still required to obtain I²C slave addresses allocated by NXP.
SMBus, defined by Intel in 1995, is a subset of I²C that defines the protocols more strictly. One purpose of SMBus is to promote robustness and interoperability. Accordingly, modern I²C systems incorporate policies and rules from SMBus, sometimes supporting both I²C and SMBus with minimal re-configuration required.
