CYUSB3KIT-003: USB 3.0 Host/Controller

Cypress EZ-USB® FX3™ (FX3) is an ARM-based controller designed to implement USB 3.0 peripherals. USB 3.0 offers the SuperSpeed signaling rate of 5 gigabits per second, which is 10 times greater than the high-speed signaling rate of 480 megabits per second. Because FX3 is USB 3.0 compliant, in addition to operating at the new SuperSpeed data rate, it can also operate at the High-Speed and Full-Speed USB data rates.

FX3 has a fully configurable General Programmable Interface (GPIF™ II) that can interface with any processor, ASIC, image sensor, or field-programmable gate array (FPGA). It provides easy and glue-less connectivity to popular industry interfaces such as synchronous slave FIFO, asynchronous SRAM, asynchronous and synchronous address data multiplexed interfaces, image sensor interfaces, and CompactFlash. Additionally, users can define proprietary interfaces using Cypress's GPIF II Designer tool, which is packaged with the FX3 Software Development Kit (SDK).

The SuperSpeed Explorer Kit combines hardware, software, and documentation that enable customers to evaluate the FX3 device. This user guide describes the steps to install the software required by the SuperSpeed Explorer Kit and to operate the development board provided with the kit. The guide also documents different types of firmware download and debug methods with detailed instructions. Two example projects (USBBulkSourceSinkLED and SRAM_FX3) explain the use of various features provided on the SuperSpeed Explorer Kit development board and the host applications provided with the FX3 SDK. This document also explains the hardware interfaces available on the development board.

Interconnect boards are available to interface the SuperSpeed Explorer Kit development board with
Aptina image sensor boards, Xilinx FPGA boards, and Altera FPGA boards.