Silicon Labs' bridge IC family simplifies addition of USB connectivity in embedded designs

AUSTIN, USA: Silicon Laboratories Inc. has announced its latest-generation bridge chip family, providing a cost-effective, small-footprint solution for USB and human interface device (HID)-USB connectivity.

Silicon Labs’ new CP21xx USB bridge family offers a turnkey solution for upgrading serial interfaces to USB or adding USB and HID-USB to applications such as personal medical devices, cellular and cordless phones, smart card and flash card readers, personal digital assistants, MP3 players, bar code readers, wireless modems and industrial control systems.

With the rapid proliferation of USB and HID-USB in the embedded world, developers are looking for painless, economical ways to embed USB connectivity in their designs.

A leading supplier of USB connectivity solutions and smart interface ICs, Silicon Labs developed the CP21xx bridge family so that designers can add USB to microcontroller-based applications without the cost and complexity of developing sophisticated USB software. The CP21xx ICs require no USB expertise to deploy, enabling developers to focus their time and resources on their end applications.

Silicon Labs’ new CP21xx USB bridge family features four USB-to-serial bridge chip solutions including the industry’s first HID-USB bridge solutions:

USB to UART bridge (CP2104)
USB to dual UART bridge (CP2105)
HID-USB to UART bridge (CP2110)
HID-USB to SMBus and I2C bridge (CP2112)

The new CP2110 and CP2112 bridge ICs comply with the USB-HID class specification natively supported by most operating systems, thus removing the need to install drivers. This eliminates the risk of incompatible and exhaustive driver updates and obviates the need for customers to provide companion CDs with specialized driver information or to maintain download sites for driver updates.

In addition, Silicon Labs’ HID-USB devices provide seamless compatibility with most operating systems, ending product delays typically associated with resolving compatibility issues, speeding time to market and easing the design effort.

To deliver this USB design flexibility in a small footprint, the CP21xx family is built on an innovative, proven architecture that eliminates the need for costly and complex external crystals, internal or external EEPROM, and other discrete components.

The single-chip CP21xx devices integrate a USB 2.0 full-speed function controller, USB transceiver, on-chip silicon oscillator, one-time programmable (OTP) ROM, and asynchronous serial data bus with full modem control signals. The CP21xx family’s novel clock recovery feature enables the internal oscillator to meet USB full-speed clock accuracy requirements.

The built-in programming charge pump supports in-field programming for quick, effortless custom-configuration of USB vendor IDs, product IDs, USB descriptors, power descriptors, device release numbers and device serial numbers.

“We’ve led the industry with easy-to-use USB solutions that free developers from the headaches and complexities associated with designing USB into embedded systems,” said Mark Thompson, vice president of Silicon Labs’ Embedded Mixed-Signal products.

“Our next-generation USB bridge solutions include royalty-free software driver suites, a rich design ecosystem, crystal-less operation, a built-in programming charge pump and a tiny package size – all to reduce system cost, streamline system design and speed our customers’ time to market.”