High-speed bridge spans faster USB storage

Cypress Semiconductor has released its fourth-generation USB mass storage bridge solution.

Cypress Semiconductor has released its fourth-generation USB mass storage bridge solution.

The CY7C68300 EZ-USB AT2 offers USB 2.0-to-ATA/ATAPI support to connect PCs and other information appliances to external storage units such as hard disk drives, CD drives and DVD drives.

The CY7C68300 expands Cypress's existing leadership position in the USB 2.0 mass storage market.

"Cypress continues to broaden its EZ-USB product portfolio to match the performance and cost requirements of the growing number of USB 2.0 developers", said Jeff Chang, Product Marketing Manager for Cypress's Personal Communications Division.

"The EZ-USB AT2 is an easy-to-use, feature rich device that will enable our customers to design their next generation mass storage devices".

Cypress's EZ-USB AT2 is a fixed-function USB 2.0-to-ATA/ATAPI bridge device that includes support for ATA-6, enabling a new class of large capacity hard disk drives.

ATA IRQ support has also been added which ensures compatibility with a wide range of devices.

Aside from the standard PIO/UDMA modes, AT2 also supports master or slave mode, as well as tri-state control for combination USB 2.0-1394 devices.

AT2 is able to transfer data packets at a rate of 480Mbit/s, the maximum speed allowed by the USB 2.0 specification, and a burst datarate of 53Mbyte/s.

It also offers ease of integration compared to other USB 2.0 solutions in its class.

The AT2 is available in two package options-56 SSOP and the space-saving 56 QFN.

The EZ-USB AT2 has successfully passed the full suite of compliance tests set by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) and has been added to the USB-IF Integrators List.

This signifies to USB developers that it has met the strict specifications for USB 2.0 devices.

The CY4615 reference design kit is also available with the EZ-USB AT2.

This kit includes an evaluation board, hardware, software, windows driver, DOS and manufacturing support capabilities that developers need to implement the high-speed USB 2.0 interface in mass-storage peripherals.

Samples of the EZ-USB AT2 (CY7C68300) mass storage bridge are available now with full production expected late June 2002.

Prices start at $4.50 for quantities of 100,000 in the 56 SSOP package.

The reference design kit is available in late June 2002 and priced at $199 per kit through Cypress distributors.

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