The manufacturers says...
Hauppauge, NY, June 7, 2004 " SMSC (NASDAQ: SMSC), a leading semiconductor company delivering innovative system solutions spanning analog, digital and mixed-signal technologies, today unveiled the industry's first USB2.0 2-port hub controller, the USB2502. Building on its expertise in USB connectivity, the new hub controller adds to SMSC's growing USB portfolio, which includes card reader controllers, transceivers and storage controllers. Combined with the Company's successful USB20H04 4-port hub controller, the USB2502 hub controller offers system designers a choice to better meet their price, board area and power requirements.

Addressing the growing demand to cut costs in price-sensitive applications such as digital media, mobile, printers and multi-functional devices, the new USB2502 hub controller offers a 2-port device for those applications where the primary system requirement is to double the available number of USB2.0 ports. Prior to this new SMSC product, the only choices for USB2.0 port expansion available in the market were 4-port and 7-port hub controllers, which are more expensive, draw more power, occupy a much larger area and typically require external flash memory to disable unused ports. By utilizing a 2-port expansion option, designers have fewer components to wire and configure, resulting in a lower bill of materials cost. As a USB 2-port hub implementation, the USB2502 hub controller architecture uses only 36 pins, which makes it approximately a third of the size of competing controllers. This area reduction is critical as designers are faced with smaller form factors demanded by the consumer market.

"Applications particularly suited for this port expansion solution include USB2.0 peripherals such as printers, scanners and storage devices, where a 2-port, low-power hub allows users to daisy-chain their USB wiring from peripheral-to-peripheral rather then requiring that each device be directly wired back to the PC," said Steve Nelson, Vice President of Marketing " Connectivity Solutions at SMSC. "The beauty of this device is that even if a peripheral containing the USB2502 controller is powered off, it can still pass the USB2.0 signals and support downstream devices, a solution that is completely unique to this USB2.0 hub controller."

The USB2502 controller consumes less than 200 milliamps (mA) when operating at the full 480Mbits per second USB2.0 high-speed mode, and can be powered by the current available from its upstream USB cable. The USB2502 controller supports both bus-powered and self-powered attached peripherals as downstream devices. For self-powered operation, the downstream device attached to the hub provides its own power. In bus-powered mode, all power is derived from the upstream facing port and no external power supply is required. Because of its industry leading USB high-speed transceivers on-chip, SMSC achieves the necessary power constraints for bus-powered mobility.

By enabling this unique daisy-chained capability, consumers can save valuable USB ports on their PCs and unclutter cables on their desktops, while increasing the distance between peripheral devices and the PC by up to 25 meters. Nelson added, "By using flash media controllers, disk drive controllers, and USB hubs as building blocks, SMSC is creating new consumer product solutions that leverage these storage/connection silicon and software building blocks."

Key Features of the USB2502 Controller:

• Complete USB2.0 specification compatibility
• Supports USB High-Speed (480Mbits/s), Full-Speed (12Mbits/s), and Low-Speed (1.5Mbits/s) transfer rates
• VID / PID / DID and hub configuration via - Serial I2C EEPROM - SMBus slave port - Internal default setting with pin strapping
• Full power management with ganged port power control
• Detects bus-power/self-power source and changes mode automatically
• Internal 24 MHz crystal driver circuitry or 24 MHz external clock driver
• Internal PLL for 480 MHz USB2.0 sampling
• Internal 1.8V linear voltage regulator
• Integrated termination and pull-up / pull-down resistors
• 1.8V low power core operation
• 3.3V I/O with 5V input tolerance
• 36-pin QFN package

Availability

Samples of the USB2502 hub controller are available now and product pricing for 10K unit volumes is $2.00 per unit (U.S. list price).

About SMSC Many of the world's most successful global technology companies rely upon SMSC as a go-to resource for integrated circuits and semiconductor system solutions that span analog, digital and mixed-signal technologies. SMSC delivers products that solve the challenges of space, cost and time-to-market for high-speed computing, connectivity and embedded networking applications.

SMSC addresses computing, communications and consumer electronics markets through world-leading positions in Input/Output and non-PCI Ethernet products; innovations in USB2.0 and other high-speed serial solutions; and integrated networking products employed in a broad range of applications. Leveraging substantial intellectual property and a comprehensive global infrastructure, SMSC thrives at the intersection of silicon, software and customized OEM applications. SMSC is based in Hauppauge, New York with operations in North America, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China and Europe. Engineering design centers are located in Arizona, New York and Texas. Additional information is available at www.smsc.com.