Cypress Semiconductor announced USB-IF certification of its two SuperSpeed USB Peripheral Controllers: EZ-USB FX3 (CYUSB3014) and West Bridge Benicia (CYWB0263BB). Both of these peripheral controllers are in full production now. EZ-USB FX3 is an USB 3.0 peripheral controller and a programmable solution. It is equipped with a fully configurable General Programmable Interface (GPIF II), which is 8/16/32 data bits wide with data rates as high as 400 MBps. GPIF II enables FX3 to interface directly to any processor, ASIC or FPGA.
The GPIF Designer Tool kit helps system designers to configure the GPIF interface to their needs, and standard interfaces are provided as examples, including FIFO, SRAM, asynchronous and synchronous address/data multiplexed, parallel ATA and others. The on-chip ARM9 CPU core with 512KB RAM delivers 200 MIPS of computational power and is available for applications that require local data processing. Additionally, FX3 provides interfaces to connect to serial peripherals such as SPI, UART, I2C and I2S. FX3 provides features that enable developers to add USB 3.0 connectivity to any system.
West Bridge Benicia is a data transfer offload engine that enables mobile devices to double the IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) performance, stream high definition video, “side-load” multimedia content up to 160 MBps and reduce battery charging time by 50% with increased charging currents up to 900mA. Benicia employs the second generation Simultaneous Link to Independent Multimedia (SLIM II) architecture that manages multiple non-blocking paths among peripherals, memory and processor to allow maximum data throughput and power savings.
Benicia features two storage ports supporting SD 3.0 and eMMC 4.41 that can be configured in RAID-0 to provide significant improvement in random and sequential read/write operations, two key indices which govern overall system performance and responsiveness. In addition, Benicia’s EZ-Detect automatically detects a wall charger or a USB hub/host port, providing portable devices flexibility for managing battery charging options.
Both EZ-USB FX3 and West Bridge Benicia are in volume production now. FX3 is available in a small 121-ball BGA with dimensions of 10 mm x 10 mm x 1.2 mm with 0.8-mm pitch, Benicia is available in a 131-ball WLCSP package with dimensions of 5.099 mm x 4.695 mm x 0.55 mm with 0.4-mm pitch.
SuperSpeed USB
SuperSpeed USB brings performance enhancements to the ubiquitous USB standard, while remaining compatible with the billions of USB-enabled devices currently deployed in the market. SuperSpeed USB delivers up to 10x the data transfer rate of Hi-Speed USB, as well as improved power efficiency. SuperSpeed USB offers effortless video streaming, music, photos at your home, office, car and anywhere in between.
The USB 3.0 specification was developed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group, which consists of Hewlett-Packard Company, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Renesas Electronics, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.
USB-IF
The non-profit USB Implementers Forum, Inc. was formed to provide a support organization and forum for the advancement and adoption of USB technology. USB-IF facilitates the development of high-quality, compatible USB devices through its logo and compliance program recognized around the globe and promotes the benefits of USB and the quality of products that have passed compliance testing.
