The TPS65988 features clock stretching for the I²C protocol. The TPS65988 slave I²C port may hold the clock line (SCL) low after receiving (or sending) a byte, indicating that it is not yet ready to process more data. The master communicating with the slave must not finish the transmission of the current bit and must wait until the clock line actually goes high. When the slave is clock stretching, the clock line remains low.

The master must wait until it observes the clock line transitioning high plus an additional minimum time (4 μs for standard 100 kbps I²C) before pulling the clock low again.

Any clock pulse may be stretched but typically it is the interval before or after the acknowledgment bit.