GOWIN Releases USB 2.0 PHY and Device Controller IP for Their FPGA Products

SAN JOSE, Calif. and GUANGZHOU, China, May 17, 2021 -- GOWIN Semiconductor Corp., the world’s fastest-growing programmable logic company, announces the release of their USB 2.0 Interfacing Solution, allowing GOWIN FPGA designers to easily integrate USB 2.0 connectivity without the need for additional silicon devices. GOWIN’s solution extends its broad support for USB connectivity over a large range of consumer, automotive, industrial, and communication applications.

According to BusinessWire, a Berkshire Hathaway Company, the market for USB devices has grown to over 30B USD making it one of the most widely used electrical interface standards in the world. FPGA’s are known for high-speed IO interface flexibility as well as their ability to pipeline data processing with arithmetic logic elements. However, no FPGA company to date has been able to cost-effectively interface an FPGA directly to USB 2.0 due to its data rate, clock recovery, and IO requirements. As a result, product manufacturers have been limited to custom ASICs, feature limited microcontrollers, or expensive SoCs in order to enable USB 2.0 support.

“Getting data into and out of our FPGA products effortlessly is one of the most critical architectural considerations our customers encounter,” said Grant Jennings, Director of International Marketing for GOWIN Semiconductor. “Built-in USB 2.0 support for our devices is an essential step to enable new product innovations as well as provide a stable path for BOM cost reduction, multi-component integration, and end of life component replacement.”

The new GOWIN USB 2.0 interfacing solution eliminates the need for external PHYs, which were previously required to achieve USB HS (high speed) 480Mbps data rates. Popular applications include bridging to other peripherals such as JTAG, SPI, and I2S, communicating with MIPI CSI-2 cameras and DSI displays, developing USB hubs, data traffic monitors and recorders, Bluetooth LE, and security dongles.

“We are excited to be the first to bring this long-awaited interconnect capability to the market,” said Scott Casper, Director of Sales, Americas, GOWIN Semiconductor,” FPGA design engineers and embedded system architects can now easily create their bridging solutions with our programmable FPGA products without worrying about limitations of off the shelf products and supply chain constraints.”

GOWIN Semiconductor has been pathing the way for innovative new FPGA products for several years now and the release of their USB 2.0 interfacing solution is the latest edition to this success. The solution includes a USB v2.0 soft PHY as well as a USB v2.0 Device Controller IP, which are included in GOWIN’s EDA Software’s IP Core Generator. The USB 2.0 IPs are available free of charge with all GOWIN FPGA products. A reference design, as well as development boards, are available, which instantiate the USB 2.0 IP cores along with a USB 2.0 to UART bridging example to get started. The IP cores support almost all GOWIN FPGAs and provide a line rate of 480Mbps in High-Speed mode per the USB 2.0 specification.

“This latest release of a soft USB2.0 PHY from GOWIN continues to provide added value for customers in the low and mid-density FPGA space,” said Mike Furnival, Vice President of International Sales. “We are proud that GOWIN is committed to providing some of the most innovative and creative solutions while continuing to support some of the lowest costs and best availabilities in the industry”

About GOWIN Semiconductor Corp.

Founded in 2014, GOWIN Semiconductor Corp., headquartered with major R&D in China, has the vision to accelerate customer innovation worldwide with our programmable solutions. We focus on optimizing our products and removing barriers for customers using programmable logic devices. Our commitment to technology and quality enables customers to reduce the total cost of ownership from using FPGA on their production boards. Our offerings include a broad portfolio of programmable logic devices, design software, intellectual property (IP) cores, reference designs, and development kits. We strive to serve customers in the consumer, industrial, communication, medical, and automotive markets worldwide.

For more information about GOWIN, please visit www.gowinsemi.com