Cypress Adds UTMI Interface Tri-State Mode to MoBL-USB TX2 Transceiver Optimized for Intel's XScale Technology
Cypress announced that its high-speed MoBL-USB TX2 transceiver for mobile handsets now offers a mode that allows all input/output pins on its UTMI interface to be tri-stated.
Low-Power Device, Now in Production, Allows Mobile Handset Makers to Add High-Speed USB Without Sacrificing Other Functions
Cypress announced that its high-speed MoBL-USB TX2 transceiver for mobile handsets now offers a mode that allows all input/output (I/O) pins on its UTMI (USB 2.0 Transceiver Macrocell Interface) interface to be tri-stated.
The new feature allows handset manufacturers to share baseband or application processor general-purpose I/O (GPIO) pins between high-speed USB and other features, such as the camera module, GPS, DVB-H, etc. The MoBL-USB TX2 device is put into a “suspend” state when USB is not in use, dropping the typical power consumption to just 8 microamps and allowing the UTMI I/O pins to be tri-stated. This allows the processor to reuse and share the limited GPIO pins for other functions across two or more devices, while extending battery life with the industry's lowest standby power consumption for a USB transceiver.
This effective sharing of the limited number of GPIOs is performed today with costly tri-state buffers, which also increase board space requirements. The MoBL-USB TX2 integrates this feature, thereby removing the need for external tri-state buffers.