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Associate
July 10, 2026
Question

complain about documentation of vl53…

  • July 10, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 43 views

Hi,

don't  know if it reaches someone who is responsible, but just some thoughts about the datasheets of all the VL53… which i have seen:

the NXP documents about I2C which are the defacto standard are stating an address is 7 or 10 bit. So it’s not a question how some microcontroller is handling bit shifting or internal storage of the address, the address of the vl53 is 0x29, not 0x52. If you use Philips/NXP protocol you should follow it’s specification. Please use this in your datasheets.

if you talk about SPI it is common to use POCI/PICO or MOSI/MISO and CS/SS/CE…. Why you don’t use the common names for slave select? What should NCS be? Noncommunication Chip Select? Why you transcribe MOSI as "main out secondary in" instead of using common "master out slave in"? If you want to distance yourselves from these terms because of their connection to slavery, then why not use POCI/PICO with "peripheral out/controller in” and vice versa as common.

why you describe pins as GPIO if they no one can use them as GPIO? Just call them INT and SYNC if they can’t used for different purposes.


I really don’t understand why to confuse the reader with not common description, namings and wrong described pin functions.

Perhaps someone could forward this to the department responsible.

regards Chris

 

3 replies

Chris42Author
Associate
July 10, 2026

For the MOSI/MISO I just got another idea: call it "Main out selected in” if you like to stay with the abbreviation. This will describe it correctly without the slavery context. This 'secondary' leads more to primary/secondary controller.

ST Technical Moderator
July 13, 2026

Hi:

Thank you for your detailed comments and suggestions.

We appreciate you taking the time to point out these documentation-related concerns, including the I2C address notation, SPI signal naming, and pin function descriptions. Your feedback is valuable, and we will make sure to pass it on to the internal team responsible for documentation writing and maintenance for further review.

Best regards,

Bin FAN

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Senior III
July 13, 2026

Hello ​@Chris42 

Regarding NCS, I believe the intention is the same as ~CS, i.e. it indicates that chip select is active low.
So N should be read as NOT in the binary meaning of it.

The rest of your remarks I agree completely...

David Littell
Senior II
July 13, 2026

The aversion to the terms “master” and “slave” is just more woke virtue-signaling stupidity.