Philips' USB On-The-Go Chip

If you can remember all the way back to September of last year (as far as tech news goes at least) the Universal Serial Bus (USB) Implementers Forum announced the On-The-Go Supplement to the USB 2.0 Specification. The supplement paves the way for smaller connectors on smaller devices so that they can link directly to each other (PDA to PDA or PDA to MP3 player, for example) or to peripherals like printers without using a PC as a go-between. The hardware for the spec appears to be forthcoming and Philips just told us that its USB On-The-Go (OTG) chip is now available to manufacturers who want to include point-to-point communications between devices. Philips says the single-chip ISP1362 is fully compliant with the USB Implementers Forum's OTG Supplement to the USB 2.0 Specification. The ISP1362 is an OTG compliant USB 2.0 host and peripheral controller. These capabilities allow the chip to act as USB host, USB peripheral, or provide both functions at the same time. The Host Negotiation Protocol (HNP) feature, which allows the host function to be transferred between two devices, eliminates the need to switch cables. Using this feature, manufacturers of dual-role devices can determine which peripherals their device will support. The ISP1362 single-chip IC will sample in February 2002 with volume production scheduled for the second quarter of 2002. Available in the LQFP64 package, pricing for the ISP1362 is $4.90 in quantities of 10,000.