MCLK in I2S audio protocol

The top signal is Frame Sync (FS). FS is used to indicate whether the audio is for the left or right channels. Don't think of them as "left" and "right" though, those are just arbitrary names. Think of them as channel 0 (FS clear) and channel 1 (FS set), time-division multiplexed onto a single communications link.

The bottom signal is the serial data that is being clocked into(?) your MCU.

MCLK is not visible in that diagram. It is the clock that is used by the audio codec (in your case, a CS42436) to time and/or drive its own internal operation. It is a relatively high frequency; a common value is 256*Fs (where Fs is the sample rate, e.g. 44.1kHz). Values in the range of 10-60MHz are pretty typical.

Tags:

Audio

I2S