by Pedro Pachuca, Marketing Manager, Interface Products, Silicon Labs
USB has become an enormous success in industrial and commercial applications as it continues to replace many legacy serial connections (i.e. RS-232, 485). It is becoming the interface of choice for enabling connectivity to new applications with its ease of use, plug-and-play functionality and increased robustness. However, for embedded solution designers, a USB implementation requires expert knowledge of the USB protocol, exhaustive software development and significant design time. In addition, USB-based microcontrollers may not offer the right peripheral set required for an application, resulting in time-to-market delays, increased design complexity and added cost. This paper discusses a painless and economical approach for adding USB connectivity to any embedded microcontroller-based solution. This approach requires no USB expertise or firmware development thus enabling designers to focus their time and resources to innovate and differentiate their applications.
USB has achieved its primary goal of simplifying the way consumers control peripherals and transfer data. With more than three billion USB-enabled devices shipped into the market, USB is not only the fastest growing interface in consumer applications but has also achieved significant growth in industrial markets. However, USB’s ease-of-use, plug-and-play functionality and robustness do not come for free for embedded solutions designers. Developers are often forced to spend a significant amount of time learning about the USB protocol, covering everything from its fundamentals to more sophisticated implementations. Even after overcoming this learning curve, designers face another major challenge when they are forced to develop a USB software stack. This is not only time consuming but may also require specialized debugging tools, which can further increase overall development cost. Although there are commercially-available USB software stacks, they represent an extra cost, and significant time is still required to learn about implementation details. Moreover, the challenge can be even more complex when the final product needs to maintain compatibility with multiple operating systems or operate in an environment where operating systems are constantly being updated.
Finally, another factor that needs to be considered when implementing USB is that of increased hardware design cost due to the USB-based microcontroller requiring external components, such as crystal oscillators and termination resistors, to provide the USB functionality. This is typically the case with many USB-based microcontrollers.
“Wouldn’t it be a major step forward in USB evolution if all the benefits that end users enjoy (ease of use, plug and play functionality and robustness) were also available to designers?”
Pursuing a simplified and economical USB implementation for designers should be the cornerstone for new USB IC solutions. This approach requires a highly-integrated solution that simplifies hardware design and reduces cost by eliminating external components. It also requires the elimination of USB software development to enable USB ease-of-use and maximize design time. Finally, to eliminate the need for driver installation, solutions should come with fully-tested, royalty-free drivers that are compatible with most operating systems and capable of supporting the USB-defined classes natively supported by most operating systems.
Solutions that can provide all of the above benefits and can be implemented in the system using standard interfaces, such as RS-232, RS-485 or I²C, are available on the market today. These solutions represent a major step forward in supporting the continued penetration of USB in the marketplace.
The CP21xx USB bridges from Silicon Laboratories are excellent examples of such solutions. Let’s analyze the benefits provided by these USB bridges and the ways that design complexity can be eliminated and implementation costs reduced.
The CP21xx USB bridge family is a highly-integrated solution that enables USB connectivity to be added to virtually any microcontroller-based solution. These devices provide a bridge to the USB world through the use of the standard UART or I²C interface common on most microcontrollers. In order to simplify the design and reduce cost, the CP21xx family integrates the hardware and software necessary to interface with USB and serial interfaces.
In addition, CP21xx products use a novel clock recovery system that reduces costs by eliminating the need for an external crystal oscillator. Further cost savings are achieved through the integration of a full USB transceiver designed to eliminate the need for external termination resistors. For customization purposes, in-system programming memory enables full customization of many USB parameters, such as Vendor ID, Product ID and product descriptions.
USB bridges offering GPIO control capability, clock output functions and a voltage regulator that can be used to power external components are also available. These features can further reduce cost by eliminating additional external components.
Another attractive feature of the USB to UART bridges is the flexibility to support multiple Baud rates to fit a wide range of applications. These USB bridges are supported by a software ecosystem that ranges from royalty-free drivers to API libraries, thereby providing complete solutions.
To further simplify and enhance plug-and-play capabilities for designers, innovative fully-compliant USB-HID bridges are also available. These unique devices fully support the USB-HID class that is natively supported by most operating systems, thereby eliminating the need for driver installation. The USB-HID class predefines functions that allow hardware manufacturers to design a product to USB-HID class specifications and expect it to work with any software that also meets these specifications. USB-HID class drivers are included in most modern operating systems allowing faster deployment of devices and easier installation by end users. Some examples of HID-USB devices are computer keyboards and mice, but the HID-USB class is sufficiently flexible to accommodate many different kinds of USB designs.
In order to keep a solution small and ergonomic, portable applications require that PCB space be minimized. In addition, some legacy applications may require keeping the same physical dimensions while upgrading their application to include USB connectivity. The CP21xx family overcomes this constraint by using QFN space-saving packages that reduce the PCB footprint and enable the designer to squeeze a solution into a space smaller than an RS-232 connector.
These high-value, economical USB bridges greatly benefit a large number of applications, such as portable medical and industrial connectivity applications, that require easy yet robust implementations of USB to be able to communicate with modern systems or computers. By means of a simple connection to a standard serial interface, such as RS-232, RS-485 or I²C, USB bridges enable designers to add USB connectivity to these applications without the painful efforts involved in redesigning an entire system.
In conclusion, USB bridges are an easy and economical approach to adding USB connectivity to microcontroller-based solutions. Their high integration reduces cost, and their simplicity eliminates the need for USB firmware development, which, in turn, enables designers to focus their time and resources on innovating and differentiating their applications. USB-HID based solutions further simplify the implementation of USB by eliminating the need to install drivers, thereby providing seamless compatibility with most operating systems. In combination, this makes USB easy not only for consumers but for designers as well.
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