VS1010 USB-UART adapter board

Features

• VS1010 device in QFN-68 package
• Miniature USB to UART (3V CMOS level) serial adapter
• Optional DC output voltage 5V (from USB) or 3.3V, 50...100mA
• Supported by VSIDE development tools
• Default baudrate 115200 bps, other rates supported by the included software in SPI FLASH

Description

VS1010 USB to UART adapter is a tiny demonstration board which shows how the VS1010 can be used as a 3.3V CMOS voltage level USB-to-serial adapter. In this operating mode, the VS1010 functions as a USB standard communications class device, offering UART input and output at 115200 bps and other rates. No custom drivers are needed in the host PC or device.

Using standard USB communications class protocol allows the device to operate with drivers that are included in the operating system. This is especially convenient with operating systems that require secure code, such as all modern phone and tablet operating systems, where using custom USB drivers is not feasible.

Windows 10, Mac OS, Linux and Android operating systems are supported out of the box. Earlier Windows operating systems such as Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and 8 require a driver INF file to use Windows standard USBSER.SYS driver.

The VS1010 ROM contains fixed software that uses the USB serial port in 115200 bps baudrate. This mode can be used without writing any firmware or even including any firmware flash on the PCB. Other baudrates are supported by software loaded from SPI FLASH (included). With custom firmware in the SPI flash, you can change the USB vendor and product IDs and add other custom operations.

The 115200 bps profile allows communications with VLSI VS1010 and VS1005 Developer Boards, for example.

The board contains two pins for DC output. One of the pins is connected directly to the 5-volt USB voltage. The other pin is driven by VS1010 integrated voltage regulator, providing a fixed DC output voltage. By default this is 3.3 volts, but it can be changed by a custom firmware. The regulator can drive a 50...100mA load.

All boards provided by VLSI include firmware v1.2 on external SPI memory. This firmware can be downloaded. Read the README.TXT in the zip file for instructions.

Schematics, gerber documents and Eagle design files are available.