Prolific USB1.1 to Serial Bridge Controllers with Advanced Features now available in USA.

9 months 3 weeks ago

Pittsford, NY: Prolific’s USB ICs – widely used overseas - are now available from their USA distributor Saelig Company Inc. (NY). Prolific Technology Inc., a leading Taiwan IC design house whose USB ICs are in volume use in Far East-manufactured USB-connected consumer products, have released PL-2303HX a new, low-cost, high-performance USB-to-Serial Bridge Controller, previously only available to Far East manufacturers but now available in the USA. PL-2303HX provides a convenient and versatile solution for connecting serial devices to any USB host. Due to its ubiquitous use in mass-produced devices, PL-2303HX’s tried-and-tested, widely-compatible, royalty-free drivers offer rugged stability in simulating a traditional COM port on most operating systems (XP, Vista, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Linux, etc.), thus allowing existing or new COM-port-based applications to easily migrate and be instantly USB-ready where no true COMports exist. Additionally, the flexible signal level requirements on the RS-232 serial port side allow PL-2303HX to connect directly to 3.3V to 1.8V devices – a feature not available on competing ICs. PL-2303HX integrates the on-chip clock generator and OTP ROM, eliminating external components, board area and cost.

By taking advantage of USB bulk transfer mode, large data buffers, and automatic flow control, PL-2303HX is capable of achieving faster throughput compared to traditional UART solutions. PL-2303HX’s flexible baud rate generator can be programmed to generate any rate between 75 bps to 12M bps, with versatile data formats such as 1/1.5/2 stop bits, none/odd/even/mark/space parity and 5/6/7/8 data bits.

PL-2303HX has been specifically designed with mobile and embedded solutions in mind, and is available in a tiny 5mm square footprint that can easily fit inside Connectors or handheld devices. With very low power consumption in either operating or suspend mode, PL-2303HX is perfect for bus-powered operation, leaving plenty of power available for attached USB devices. Unlike similar ICs, PL-2303HX supports full handshaking for RS232 and RS422/RS485 2-wire interfaces. PL-2303HX’s on-chip OTP ROM stores startup device configurations such as product and serial number ID.

PL-2303HX, fully USB2.0(High-Speed)-compliant, offers extensive flow control features: adjustable high/low watermark level, automatic hardware or software flow control, inbound data buffer overflow detection, etc. and configurable 256-byte inbound/outbound buffers. Additionally, PL-2303HX supports remote wake-up from modem input signals (there are six modem control pins - RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, and RI) and has 8 useful GPIO pins.

Drivers supplied for PL-2303HX are Windows and Vista-certified and the IC is USB-IF Logo Compliant with TID 40000100.

Supplied in a small footprint 28-pin SSOP or 32-pin QFN IC package, PL-2303HX is now available from their USA distributor Saelig Company at $3.39 (1K qty). A demonstration board is also available at $20 each. Other Prolific products are also available from Saelig. 1-888-7SAELIG info@saelig.com www.saelig.com