Development help for USB On The Go

Philips Electronics has released one of the semiconductor industry's first complete Universal Serial Bus (USB) On-The-Go (OTG) system developers' kits.

Philips Electronics has released one of the semiconductor industry's first complete Universal Serial Bus (USB) On-The-Go (OTG) system developers' kits.

Based on Philips OTG semiconductors, the kit simplifies the addition of USB OTG to handheld and mobile devices using the Intel PXA250 applications processor with Intel XScale technology.

USB OTG is a wired connectivity standard that allows battery-powered devices such as PDAs, digital cameras, and smart phones to easily exchange data.

With USB OTG, users can print a picture directly from a digital camera to a printer or transfer an address book from a PDA to a smart phone without having to use a personal computer.

The Philips developers kit, complete with software, can reduce the engineering time required to add USB OTG to these products by up to 75%.

"Wireless products based on the Intel PXA250 applications processor promise to bring high quality streaming media and a host of new applications to consumers on the move", said Mark Casey, director of marketing for Intel's PCA Components Group.

"Many of our customers plan to add USB OTG to their smart phones and handheld multimedia devices in the near future.

The Philips developers kit makes this task easier and is another example of the broad industry support for the Intel Personal Internet Client Architecture".

Unlike the other USB standards, USB OTG allows a device to serve as both a USB host and USB peripheral.

For example, a PDA can be host (master) to a printer in one instance and then be a peripheral (slave) to another device as information is downloaded.

While this new OTG functionality adds some complexity to the USB standard, the Philips developer kit makes it easy to implement.

"USB OTG has the potential for broad adoption because of the high volume of USB devices already out there in the market", said Brian O'Rourke, Senior Analyst for In-Stat/MDR.

"The developers kit from Philips will help accelerate this adoption by making it much easier for engineers to add OTG to their products".

The Philips developers' kit includes complete OTG software host stack with full driver support, a controller card based on the Philips OTG chip, OTG and host ports, plus OTG access and monitoring tools.

The kit is designed to support products using the Windows CE.NET and Linux operating systems.

Designed in co-operation with Accelent Systems, the leading provider of system software, development platforms and professional services for embedded devices, the developers' kit is based on the Accelent IDP (integrated development platform) for the Intel PXA250 applications processor.

Users of the Philips kit, and the Accelent IDP, can easily develop and test USB host class drivers, USB peripheral functions, and OTG-related application programs.

"We have built our leadership in connectivity by developing innovative products, complete with software and support", said Phil Pollok, executive vice president of Philips emerging business unit.

"The USB OTG developers' kit is another example of Philips' strategy to provide complete, easy to implement products and it allows our customers to fast-track their OTG development".

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