4
FN8165.3
August 29, 2006
DEVICE DESCRIPTION
Serial Interface
The X9250 supports the SPI interface hardware
conventions. The device is accessed via the SI input
with data clocked in on the rising SCK. CS must be
LOW and the HOLD and WP pins must be HIGH
during the entire operation.
The SO and SI pins can be connected together, since
they have three state outputs. This can help to reduce
system pin count.
Array Description
The X9250 is comprised of four resistor arrays. Each
array contains 255 discrete resistive segments that
are connected in series. The physical ends of each
array are equivalent to the fixed terminals of a
mechanical potentiometer (VH/RH and VL/RL inputs).
At both ends of each array and between each resistor
segment is a CMOS switch connected to the wiper
(VW/RW) output. Within each individual array only one
switch may be turned on at a time.
These switches are controlled by a Wiper Counter
Register (WCR). The 8 bits of the WCR are decoded
to select, and enable, one of 256 switches.
Wiper Counter Register (WCR)
The X9250 contains four Wiper Counter Registers,
one for each XDCP potentiometer. The WCR is
equivalent to a serial-in, parallel-out register/counter
with its outputs decoded to select one of 256 switches
along its resistor array. The contents of the WCR can
be altered in four ways: it may be written directly by
the host via the write Wiper Counter Register
instruction (serial load); it may be written indirectly by
transferring the contents of one of four associated
Data Registers via the XFR Data Register or Global
XFR Data Register instructions (parallel load); it can
be
modified
one
step
at
a
time
by
the
increment/decrement instruction. Finally, it is loaded
with the contents of its Data Register zero (DR0) upon
power-up.
The Wiper Counter Register is a volatile register; that
is, its contents are lost when the X9250 is powered-
down. Although the register is automatically loaded
with the value in R0 upon power-up, this may be
different from the value present at power-down.
Data Registers
Each potentiometer has four 8-bit nonvolatile Data
Registers. These can be read or written directly by the
host. Data can also be transferred between any of the
four Data Registers and the associated Wiper Counter
Register. All operations changing data in one of the
Data Registers is a nonvolatile operation and will take
a maximum of 10ms.
If the application does not require storage of multiple
settings for the potentiometer, the Data Registers can
be used as regular memory locations for system
parameters or user preference data.
Data Register Detail
(MSB)
(LSB)
D7
D6
D5
D4
D3
D2
D1
D0
NV
X9250