I've been musing over the Type C USB connector on my Chromebook. I watched a 40 minute video at Cypress this morning, http://www.cypress.com/?rID=111101, and I've downloaded the USB Type C documents http://www.usb.org/developers/usbtypec/, but I'm still at the earliest stages of exploring this.
There are three devices with USB Type C connectors on the market this week, a MacBook, a ChromeBook, and a Nokia Tablet. There will be dozens by the end of the year. There are several advantages to USB Type C: 1) there's no right side up for the plugs, they connect either side up; 2) there's no wrong end on the cable, they're the same on both ends; 3) either end of a Type C cable can supply power to the other end, and they can swap roles, too; 4) the power supplied can be negotiated up to 100W, 5A @ 20V; 5) in addition to the USB 2.0 data lines, there are four super-speed differential pairs, and a bunch of other signals; 6) one use for those super-speed pairs is video, the Chromebook has display port and hdmi adapters; 7) and so on, ....
I believe that a Type C USB connector could be connected to a Teensy and with a few pullups and pulldowns on the configuration channels pins, the Teensy could passively request several power configurations. The GND, VBUS, and USB 2.0 data lines would connect straight through. All the other USB 3.x super-speed lines would be ignored.
It also seems likely that the Teensy could actively participate on the configuration channel and negotiate even more power configurations or change its role. It needs to handle 300 kHz Manchester BPSK superimposed on DC supplied to power the configuration controller. I'm not sure exactly what that means, yet, but I see an arduino manchester coding packages that use one pin for transmit and one for receive, so I suspect we're basically looking for clock transitions. And I think the physical interface is a just a transformer to isolate the coding AC from the power DC. If more than a 5V supply were requested, then we'd need a step down regulator to power the Teensy, or could it power from the Vconn configuration channel?
http://www.cypress.com/ccg1/ and http://www.cypress.com/ccg2/ are Cypress dedicated controllers, which could be spliced between the Type C connector and the Teensy. But I suspect the Teensy 3's could handle it all themselves, and maybe there could be a Teensy 3.xC that only changed the connector and a few traces? Or could the MINI54TAN handle this?
The reason for wanting this is to send more power to the Teensy. If you're driving LED arrays, motors, speakers, or a radio transmitter, life is so much easier if you can pull power over the same cable. And if you're distributing power to Teensy driven hardware, it's also nice to be able to watch both ends of the negotiation.
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There are three devices with USB Type C connectors on the market this week, a MacBook, a ChromeBook, and a Nokia Tablet. There will be dozens by the end of the year. There are several advantages to USB Type C: 1) there's no right side up for the plugs, they connect either side up; 2) there's no wrong end on the cable, they're the same on both ends; 3) either end of a Type C cable can supply power to the other end, and they can swap roles, too; 4) the power supplied can be negotiated up to 100W, 5A @ 20V; 5) in addition to the USB 2.0 data lines, there are four super-speed differential pairs, and a bunch of other signals; 6) one use for those super-speed pairs is video, the Chromebook has display port and hdmi adapters; 7) and so on, ....
I believe that a Type C USB connector could be connected to a Teensy and with a few pullups and pulldowns on the configuration channels pins, the Teensy could passively request several power configurations. The GND, VBUS, and USB 2.0 data lines would connect straight through. All the other USB 3.x super-speed lines would be ignored.
It also seems likely that the Teensy could actively participate on the configuration channel and negotiate even more power configurations or change its role. It needs to handle 300 kHz Manchester BPSK superimposed on DC supplied to power the configuration controller. I'm not sure exactly what that means, yet, but I see an arduino manchester coding packages that use one pin for transmit and one for receive, so I suspect we're basically looking for clock transitions. And I think the physical interface is a just a transformer to isolate the coding AC from the power DC. If more than a 5V supply were requested, then we'd need a step down regulator to power the Teensy, or could it power from the Vconn configuration channel?
http://www.cypress.com/ccg1/ and http://www.cypress.com/ccg2/ are Cypress dedicated controllers, which could be spliced between the Type C connector and the Teensy. But I suspect the Teensy 3's could handle it all themselves, and maybe there could be a Teensy 3.xC that only changed the connector and a few traces? Or could the MINI54TAN handle this?
The reason for wanting this is to send more power to the Teensy. If you're driving LED arrays, motors, speakers, or a radio transmitter, life is so much easier if you can pull power over the same cable. And if you're distributing power to Teensy driven hardware, it's also nice to be able to watch both ends of the negotiation.
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