System design requirements are continually changing as systems become increasingly complex. In conventional systems where sensors and actuators are connected directly to a microcontroller (MCU), the number of pins available on the MCU limits system expansion. As a result, extra costs can be incurred if another MCU is required or if the hardware has to be redesigned to accommodate a higher pin count MCU. An alternative approach is to move to a distributed bus architecture. This option allows one master MCU to interconnect to many remote sensors and actuators.