Serial interface engine provides USB 2.0 for MCUs

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 21, 2001

Cypress Semiconductor has expanded its USB 2.0 product line with the introduction of the EZ-USB SX2 intelligent serial interface engine (SIE).

Cypress Semiconductor has expanded its USB 2.0 product line with the introduction of the EZ-USB SX2 intelligent serial interface engine (SIE).

The EZ-USB SX2 provides a 480Mbit/s USB 2.0 connection to a peripheral containing a microcontroller; it is the only low-cost solution that does not drain the controller's resources.

The EZ-USB SX2 integrates a USB 2.0 transceiver, a high-speed PLL, an intelligent SIE, a 4Kbyte FIFO, and a very simple local bus interface.

The integrated SIE takes care of USB housekeeping chores, so the microcontroller can spend its resources on the peripheral application.

The 'intelligent' SIE means that peripheral designers don't have to learn USB protocols to add this capability to their products, which speeds their time to market.

This makes it easy to add high-speed USB to many peripheral applications including scanners, printers, networking devices, and digital video cameras.

"The EZ-USB SX2 provides speed, flexibility and low cost in peripherals that already contain a microcontroller", said Norman Taffe, Cypress's director of marketing for USB products.

"Its USB endpoint buffers can be double-, triple- or quad-buffered so performance can be tailored to the application.

It provides both 8 and 16bit data paths, adding further design flexibility.

The intelligent SIE means that peripheral designers don't have to learn USB protocols to add this capability to their products, which speeds their time to market.

Its simple FIFO interface makes hardware design 'easy' too.

And all of this comes in an inexpensive 56-pin SSOP package".

The EZ-USB SX2 is due to sample in Q1.

It will be available in production quantities in Q3 priced at $5.29 in volumes of 10,000 units.