Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI)

Synchronous Serial Interface, or SSI, is a commonly used point-to-point serial communications protocol. It is widely used in industrial applications due to its simplicity and proven history. SSI is the most straight-forward communication protocol that EPC offers for its absolute encoders. SSI is a master/slave technology; the controller serves as the master device and the encoder acts as the slave device. The master controls the speed of data transfer based on clock frequency; each clock pulse from the master prompts a response of 1 bit of information from the slave device until the entire packet has been received. The graphic below illustrates the master/slave relationship: