The INA230 operates only as a target device on both the I²C bus and the SMBus. Connections to the bus are made through the open-drain I/O lines, SDA, and SCL. The SDA and SCL pins feature integrated spike-suppression filters and Schmitt triggers to minimize the effects of input spikes and bus noise. Although there is spike suppression integrated into the digital I/O lines, proper layout should be used to minimize the amount of coupling into the communication lines. This noise introduction could occur from capacitively coupling signal edges between the two communication lines themselves or from other switching noise sources present in the system. Routing traces in parallel with ground in between layers on a printed circuit board (PCB) typically reduces the effects of coupling between the communication lines. Shielding communication lines in general is recommended to reduce to possibility of unintended noise coupling into the digital I/O lines that could be incorrectly interpreted as start or stop commands.

The INA230 supports the transmission protocol for Fast (1 kHz to 400 kHz) and High-speed (1 kHz to 3.4 MHz) modes. All data bytes are transmitted most significant byte first.