Each year when I start talking to our customers about the upcoming MIPI I3C Plugfest, I immediately get asked many of the same of questions about the event, the format, the testing process, etc. With the next Plugfest coming up in two weeks in Taipei, I'm going to capture a lot of information I've previously shared via email and publish here in I3C Cafe for others to see.
Before getting started, let me mention two important items regarding the context of the following info that I share:
1. The MIPI I3C Plugfest is heavily protected by NDA of all participants. It's a secure place for participants to bring and test new IP, technologies, products, devices, etc. knowing that it will remain confidential.
2. Binho is currently a MIPI Alliance Contributor Member and actively participates on the I3C Working Group. In 2022, I attended the Plugfest as a non-member, in 2023 I attended the Plugfest as a new member, and for the 2024 Plugfest, I will be attending the even having a full year of I3C Working Group participation with some knowledge of the inner-workings of MIPI and I3C Working Group. The content and opinions shared below are of my own professional opinion based on event attendance in my role of CTO of Binho and are not in any way endorsed by MIPI Alliance nor affiliated with my role as an I3C Working Group participant.
Okay, so let's get started by answering some of the most common questions that come up:
Q1: Who typically attends the Plugfests?
A1: As mentioned above, even the participants names are protected by the NDA, so as not to reveal who may be exploring the adoption of this protocol. That said, in the weeks following a Plugfest, the MIPI Alliance releases a Press Release with some stats from the event, including the number of participants as well as the names of any companies who have given MIPI explicit authorization to publish their names. I've linked to the press releases for the 2022 and 2023 events below for easy reference.
- San Jose, June 2023 - MIPI Alliance I3C Plugfest 2023 Press Release
- 26 implementers from 10 companies
- Munich, June 2022 - MIPI Alliance I3C Plugfest 2022 Press Release
- 16 implementers from 7 companies
You can see that the participants represent the full range of industries that are relevant to I3C protocol, from semiconductor companies, to IP development companies, to test & measurement companies. I can say from my experience that there is significant value in attending a Plugfest no matter the type or maturity level of your I3C implementation.
Q2: How is the Plugfest organized?
From there, it's up to each individual company/team to coordinate with the other participants to spend time working together to test out the interoperability of their devices / implementations. There is no Pass or Fail designation, and there's no tracking of any results beyond what each participant tracks. It's quite unlike plugfests hosted by other organizations that are issuing compliance reports, such as USB-IF or PCI SIG, where devices will be subjected to a pre-defined test script and issued a pass/fail designation. The I3C Plugfest is not like that (at this time), as market adoption is still in its early phases, and also the spec does not have an official compliance testing requirement.
I personally find this flexibility absolutely wonderful, as it allows us to dive into anomalies and issues that surface, rather than being forced into a rigid event structure. This allows participants to investigate the topics of their implementation that they are most concerned about. For example, if a participant has doubts about the implementation of their IBIs, they can spend a few hours focused on testing that with other participants. Take for another example, a participant may be interested in verifying their HDR-DDR mode implementation. HDR-DDR mode is an optional feature of I3C, so not all participants will have implementations that can operate with this device in HDR-DDR mode. As such, there's no obligation that the participant with the HDR-DDR spend most of their time testing with devices that are unable to exercise the features of primary concern to the engineers.
Q3: How is the Plugfest different than just running through the I3C CTS?
Some of the hardest things to verify like Synchronous mode, secondary controllership, HDR-DDR mode, etc, are features not covered by the CTS -- for this reason, the Plugfest can be a very helpful session to find some other
members working on the same things to test against.
In many situations, discussions about edge cases in the actual specification arise that end up being reviewed by the I3C Working Group for further clarification in the weekly meetings following up after the Plugfest is over. In past years, some of the most strategic developers of the I3C specification have been in attendance at the Plugfest that have been involved in its development since the very beginning and are able to provide immediate clarification of the spec on-site. The I3C Working Group fields questions from adopter-level members and even non-members via email, but for companies who are not contributor-level members of MIPI Alliance, this event is an opportunity to get direct conversation and engagement with many of the folks on the I3C Working Group.
Q4: Our device does not support Debug over I3C, should we still plan to attend both days?
Q5: Our implementation is not very mature / has known defects. Is there value in attending?
Q6: Our implementation is already in mass production / passed the I3C CTS. Is there value in attending?
Q7: What should we bring with us?
I suggest also bringing extra USB hubs / cables and a flash drive - they will come in handy to help overcome the port constraints of working on your laptop in a conference room. The USB hub will be helpful because a lot of devices can be powered from a 5V USB source. Having extra ports available also means you can connect some test tools (more on that below). The USB key is helpful for sharing datasheets, scope captures, example scripts, etc, with other attendees, and getting data that can be taken back home for later analysis and investigation.
I also personally recommend bringing your Saleae Logic if you have one. We provide a free evaluation license for the latest version of our I3C protocol analyzer plugin for Saleae Logic for any participant that would like to use it during the duration of the Plugfest. At this year's Plugfest we will also have several of our Supernova USB to I3C host adapters available for participants to use during the event. These devices both connect over USB, so it's beneficial to have those ports available.
In summary, you should attend the MIPI Alliance I3C Plugfest. It's the one annual event where you get to spend 2 full days in a conference room with the leading engineers from across the world that have been developing and testing I3C devices. I'm looking forward to attending again this year, and my colleagues and I will be eager to work with all the other participants to test out their implementations.
