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Simple USB hub design

Could any electronics guru on this newsgroup
direct me to a not too complicated USB hub
design ? I have been told that there are some
that need firmware, while others do not. Any
hints, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
M

miso

Jan 1, 1970
0
Could any electronics guru on this newsgroup
direct me to a not too complicated USB hub
design ? I have been told that there are some
that need firmware, while others do not. Any
hints, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Design as in roll your own? Or design as in just buy one?

I'd suggest trolling the New Egg customer reviews, but I warn you, you
won't find a hub without someone complaining it sucks.

In general, anything with a NEC chip is usually better than the pack.
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Could any electronics guru on this newsgroup
direct me to a not too complicated USB hub
design ? I have been told that there are some
that need firmware, while others do not. Any
hints, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have designed in several SMSC USB-ish chips in medium volume
products and they work reasonably. Don't forget to add common mode
chokes and transient suppressors!
http://www.smsc.com/Products/USB/USB_Hubs

A device I choose randomly can even be bought in small quantities:
http://uk.farnell.com/microchip/usb...t-usb-2-hsic-hub-cntrl/dp/2292620?Ntt=USB3503
 
P

P E Schoen

Jan 1, 1970
0
wrote in message
Could any electronics guru on this newsgroup direct me to a not too
complicated USB hub design ? I have been told that there are some that
need firmware, while others do not. Any hints, suggestions would be
greatly appreciated.

I use the TUSB2046b from Texas Instruments. It uses a 6 MHz crystal and a
few external components, and can be configured as a self-powered or
hub-powered 4 port hub.

http://www.ti.com/product/tusb2046b

About $3 in small quantities:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=TUSB2046

http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/405/slls413h-127940.pdf

The only problem I had initially, IIRC, was an unterminated RESET line or
some other control pin. Otherwise it's just plug-n-play.

Paul
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Vladimir Vassilevsky said:
There is a need to read a lot of data from many USB flash drives.
Would it be possible to plug several drives into a hub so several
simultaneous USB 2.0 transfers would be combined into one USB 3.0
transfer to the root?

The 3.0 standard seems to allow for that; however I don't know if this
actually supported by any hub or chipset. Rolling your own 2.0/3.0 hub
using FPGA seems to be cumbersome.

I have no idea whether that is supported or not. Besides that USB2.0
can already go up to 400Mb/s. I'm not sure if you would gain much
speed. It depends largely on the USB flash drives and where the data
needs to go.
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
When I look at the datasheets from an SMSC USB3.0 capable hub it seems
the USB3.0 superspeed paths are seperated from the USB2.0 paths so a
USB2.0 device will not be faster.
http://www.smsc.com/Products/USB/USB_Hubs/Standalone_USB_Hubs/USB5434B/Download
I thought you might know as you actually design USB hubs.

So far I only used the USB2.0 ethernet and ethernet / USB hub combos
from SMSC. The people responsible for the software in those projects
however did extensive tests which show the chips are stable under
load.

Doing a USB3.0 layout may not be trivial. Routing traces carrying
5Gbps on FR4 is doable but there are some pitfalls.
All overheads included, useful transfer rate over USB 2.0 is only about
30 M/s. USB flash drives are near this limit at least for read speed.
Several simultaneous transfers through USB 3.0 hub would definitely be
big advantage.

It seems it will take more work to get it going if you insist on using
[email protected] flash drives. USB3.0 flash drives are already widely available.
 
wrote in message










I use the TUSB2046b from Texas Instruments. It uses a 6 MHz crystal and a

few external components, and can be configured as a self-powered or

hub-powered 4 port hub.



http://www.ti.com/product/tusb2046b



About $3 in small quantities:



http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=TUSB2046



http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/405/slls413h-127940.pdf



The only problem I had initially, IIRC, was an unterminated RESET line or

some other control pin. Otherwise it's just plug-n-play.



Paul

Thanks for the feedback. This is basically what I was
looking for, some sort of a reference design.
 
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