Easy route to USB storage design

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jul 26, 2004

A new USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit enables design engineers with little knowledge of USB or mass-storage class drivers to easily develop products that host USB storage devices.

A new USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit enables design engineers, even those with little knowledge of USB or mass-storage class drivers, to easily develop products that host USB storage devices.

The new kit, designed for use with Cypress's EZ-Host family of USB embedded host controllers, supports several types of USB mass-storage class peripherals including USB hard drives, NAND Flash drives, mass storage class-compliant MP3 players and digital still cameras.

Key target applications include set-top boxes, portable media players, MP3 players, data banks and other products that exchange data with these storage devices.

The kit also supports internal storage devices, such as hard drives, via the EZ-Host controller's on-chip IDE interface.

The value of Cypress's USB Host Mass Storage RDK, however, is not limited to designers of PC-hosted multimedia peripherals.

Many products outside the PC world, including automotive consoles, exercise equipment and vending machines that rely on USB-based storage devices to provide information or record user data, can also benefit.

The USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit (CY4640) includes the USB host software stack, a mass-storage class driver, a file system and associated supporting software modules, as well as a sample application layer and hardware that enable customers to evaluate a design at various stages of development.

"Cypress' USB Host Mass Storage RDK enables a wide array of new or existing products to communicate directly with USB mass-storage devices, without relying on a PC", said Brian Booker, USB Host and OTG Product Manager in Cypress's Personal Communications Division.

"This kit is the latest in a series of offerings from Cypress designed to simplify the integration of USB technology into PC systems, peripherals and many other appliances".

: The USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit is sampling in limited quantities today and priced starting at $395 (MSRP).

Full production of the kit will commence in September.