USB 3.0 Micro Delivers Fast Data Transfers

April 11, 2011

Cypress Semiconductor's EZ-USB FX3 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Peripheral Controller is much more than just a fast 5 Gbit/s USB 3.0 end node. It includes a ARM926EJS core with 512 Kbytes of SRAM.

William G. Wong

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Cypress Semiconductor's EZ-USB FX3 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Peripheral Controller

Cypress Semiconductor's new EZ-USB FX3 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Peripheral Controller (Fig. 1) is much more than just a fast 5 Gbit/s USB 3.0 end node. It includes a ARM926EJS core with 512 Kbytes of SRAM. The chip can boot from an I²C serial memory.

The EZ-USB FX3 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Peripheral Controller is more than just a controller because of its ARM processor. It is also more than just a micro with a USB 3.0 interface because it can handle many operations without putting the micro in between the data transfer.

The chip supports USB 3.0 as well as USB 2.0 OTG. It is designed to handle high speed transfers directly between the 32-bit, 100 MHz General Programmable Interface (GPIF II) via DMA. This allows the controller to provide high speed, low overhead USB 3.0 transfers in either direction. The GPIF II can also handle 8-, 16- or 24-bit data as well. Uncompress 1080p60 data is no problem with this system. It works equally well with high speed digital cameras, FPGAs and other devices. The EZ-USB FX3 can handle up to 32 USB endpoints.

The microcontroller can provide additional processing to the data stream if necessary. It has GPIO, I²C, I2S, SPI and a UART interface in addition to the USB and GPIF II interface.

The 10mm by 10mm BGA chip can run off power from 3V to 6V. It uses a 1.2V core and can handle 1.8V to 3.6V IO. The chip requires a 19.2MHz crystal.

The EZ USB Tools development software can streamline system design. A hardware and software development kit is available.

Cypress Semiconductor

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William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

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