Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Cypress Semiconductor | Subject: EZ-USB NX2LP and AT2LP
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 13 April 2005
Speedy USB controllers cut the power
budget
Cypress Semiconductor has unveiled two new families of low-cost, high-speed USB controllers it reckons offer the industry's lowest power consumption.
Cypress Semiconductor has unveiled two new families of low-cost, high-speed USB controllers it reckons offer the industry's lowest power consumption The new controllers take advantage of advanced process technology developed by Cypress to slash dynamic and standby power consumption by nearly 50% compared with leading competitors
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 9 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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As a result of the low dynamic power, peripherals using the new devices can operate from the power of the USB bus.
The low standby current enables portable USB applications to significantly extend battery life.
Targeted to specific memory and storage applications, the new families deliver full functionality at low costs.
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The EZ-USB NX2LP family is designed specifically for NAND Flash memory control applications.
It is ideal for the increasingly popular USB "thumb drives" used for portable storage of music, presentation material and other large files.
The EZ-USB AT2LP family addresses the ATA/ATAPI and CompactFlash-based storage products including microdrives, magnetic hard drives, optical drives (CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW), and CF cards.
Microdrives are increasingly finding homes in mobile applications such as MP3 players, mobile phones and portable media players (PMPs).
The fixed-function EZ-USB NX2LP and AT2LP families complement Cypress's EZ-USB FX2LP programmable controllers, announced in 2004, which can be configured for use in a wide range of applications, including TV tuner cards, personal video recorders (PVR) and feature rich mass-storage systems such as hard drives with single button backup capabilities.
"The EZ-USB FX2LP products have been enthusiastically received by our customers due to their industry-leading power consumption specifications and flexibility", said Norm Taffe, Managing Director of Cypress's USB business unit.
"With the EZ-USB NX2LP and EZ-USB AT2LP lines, we are offering the same low-power performance at a lower cost for highly competitive, high-volume Flash memory and mass storage markets".
"With power consumption significantly below the USB-IF bus power specification, Cypress's EZ-USB FX2LP solution provided us flexibility in choosing other components in the design", said Raj Chirayil, Marketing Manager, Portable Audio and Infotainment Business, Texas Instruments.
"As a result, our TMS320DA255 DSP-based audio player reference design, offers a world-class feature-rich product that sets us apart from the competition".
The EZ-USB NX2LP, EZ-USB AT2LP, and EZ-USB FX2LP families all have typical current consumption (Icc) of just 50mA, enabling peripherals to enumerate at well below 100mA USB-IF bus power specification with ample margins to implement additional features.
Competing solutions typically consume 80-110mA.
The EZ-USB NX2LP (CY7C68023 and CY7C68024) products implement a USB 2.0 NAND Flash controller.
This controller adheres to the Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport Specification.
The EZ-USB NX2LP devices support popular 8bit NAND Flash interfaces and both common NAND page sizes of 512 and 2Kbyte.
Eight chip-enable pins allow the devices to be connected to either eight single-device, or four dual-device NAND Flash chips.
Certain features are configurable, enabling the products to meet the needs of different design requirements.
The CY3685 EZ-USB NX2LP development kit and CY4618 EZ-USB NX2LP reference design kit are available to facilitate the design process and speed time to market for customers.
The EZ-USB AT2LP (CY7C68300B/CY7C68301B and CY7C68320/CY7C68321) devices implement a fixed function bridge between one USB port and one or two ATA- or ATAPI-based mass storage device ports.
This bridge adheres to the Mass Storage Class Bulk-Only Transport Specification and is intended for bus- and self-powered devices.
A 4Kbyte buffer maximises ATA/ATAPI data transfer rates by minimising losses due to device seek times, enabling industry leading performance such as 16x DVD-R/RW drives.
The device initialisation process is configurable, enabling initialisation of ATA/ATAPI devices without software intervention.
Cypress offers the CY4615B EZ-USB AT2LP reference design kit to facilitate the design process and speed time to market for customers.
The EZ-USB FX2LP is a fully integrated peripheral controller, including an 8051 microprocessor, a serial interface engine, a high speed USB 2.0 transceiver, on-chip RAM and FIFO and a general programmable interface.
Its unique architecture handles all basic USB functions, enabling the host system's microprocessor to focus on application-specific functions and ensuring sustained high-performance data transfer rates.
Featuring a datarate of 480Mbit/s, 16Kbyte of on-chip memory, and up to 40 programmable I/Os, Cypress's EZ-USB FX2LP solution provides world-class design flexibility.
There are also several package options, including a space-saving 8 x 8mm QFN package, ideal for use in small form-factor mobile applications.
The CY3684 EZ-USB FX2LP development kit is available to facilitate the design process and speed time-to-market for customers.
CY4611B EZ-USB FX2LP reference design kit to facilitate flexible mass-storage designs will be available in Q2'05.
All 3 families of EZ-USB products are USB-IF certified and are in full production.
The EZ-USB NX2LP devices are offered in lead-free 56-pin QFN packages.
The EZ-USB AT2LP devices are offered in lead-free 100-pin TQFP and 56-pin SSOP and QFN packages.
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