[PLUG] Linux USB Hardware Prototyping

[Larry Brigman]

On 3/24/07, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
>
> Hardware geeks only ...
>
> Anybody here do USB prototyping.
>
> I want to build an interface board that goes from a chip test
> socket to high-speed USB.  An easy-to-use Linux-friendly digital
> I/O board with about 12 digital gozoutas (2 fast) to the interface
> board, and 8 digital gozintas, would be nice.  I want 10MBytes per
> second read rates, faster if possible.  FIFOs and agile clock
> generation a plus.
>
> I will not be building a product, so cost is not as important as
> ease-of-use.  I will be building very long stimulus patterns out of
> nested software loops, and capturing the results.   Hopefully the
> programming interface is simple and flexible enough to facilitate this.
>
> Two possibilities found on the web, there are probably more:
>
> Devasys USB I2C/IO based on the Cypress AN2131QC http://snurl.com/mf21
>          ( http://www.devasys.com/usbi2cio.htm )
> Celeritous USBDEV1 based on the ftdi  FT2232C   http://snurl.com/mf1y
>

I have used the FDTI chips for one project but it was under Windows.  They have
supported the people doing serial drivers for the chip well enough
that these are
now in the kernel.  The ftdi2232C is a dual uart part that can also be
used for bit banging
12 IO lines per side.  Prototype boards are available direct from
http://www.dlpdesign.com/
Mouser and Digikey.

My project used the IO,Serial, and I2C off of the chip.  Most time
critical stuff was done
in hardware at the other end of the I2C but I did do some 400khz clock
trains for debugging
the hardware.