An i2c gate is useful to e.g. reduce the digital noise for RF tuners connected to the i2c bus. Gates are similar to arbitrators in that you need to perform some kind of operation to access the i2c bus past the arbitrator/gate, but there are no competing masters to consider for gates and therefore there is no arbitration happening for gates. Common i2c gate properties. - i2c-gate child node Required properties for the i2c-gate child node: - #address-cells = <1>; - #size-cells = <0>; Optional properties for i2c-gate child node: - Child nodes conforming to i2c bus binding Example : /* An Invensense mpu9150 at address 0x68 featuring an on-chip Asahi Kasei ak8975 compass behind a gate. */ mpu9150@68 { compatible = "invensense,mpu9150"; reg = <0x68>; interrupt-parent = <&gpio1>; interrupts = <18 1>; i2c-gate { #address-cells = <1>; #size-cells = <0>; ax8975@c { compatible = "ak,ak8975"; reg = <0x0c>; }; }; };