Catena 1820

USB Device and Host Firmware Development Platform

Product

US $995 with shipping
Download Product Brief
Visit Store

Use your PC to develop and test embedded USB device, host, and On-The-Go (OTG) firmware. The MCCI Catena® 1820 gives USB firmware developers everything needed to prototype USB firmware in Microsoft Visual C, while working on a Windows system.

The Catena 1820 combines a Renesas R8A66597 Hi-Speed USB Host Controller and Peripheral Controller chip with an ExpressCard interface and a low-level driver for Windows. The Catena 1820 allows developers to write register-level code that accesses the R8A66597 just as it would in a target system. Code can then be recompiled and used unchanged on a target embedded system.
For example, applications based on the MCCI USB DataPump can be prototyped and tested on a Windows PC, then used unchanged in the target embedded system.
The Catena 1820 is ideal for use in early prototyping and proof of concept, development of device class drivers for an embedded host stack, and for evaluating OTG system architectural concepts before product hardware is available.

MCCI_Catena_1820_board

Code developed with the MCCI Catena 1820 runs as a Windows application, and is debugged using standard debugging tools, including the Visual Studio environment.
In addition to supporting OTG development, the Catena 1820 can be used for developing embedded USB device firmware, embedded USB host stacks, or a combination (USB embedded host for embedded peripherals, plus OTG functionality for system expansion). MCCI® supplies five different cable adapters:

Catena 1820 cable adapters
  • OTG mini A/B (for OTG dual role device emulation)
  • Mini B (for OTG or standard USB device emulation)
  • Dual A receptacle (emulates dual USB host)
  • Mini B plus standard USB A receptacle (emulates USB device plus embedded USB host)
  • Dual A receptacle (emulates dual USB host)

Code developed with the MCCI USB DataPump can readily use the R8A66597 to simulate silicon that is under development or not yet available. The silicon independent DataPump architecture allows the underlying silicon to be replaced with no effect on the higher level firmware developed earlier in a project.
Related MCCI products include:

Specifications

MCCI Catena 1820

USB Silicon Renesas R8A66597
PCIe Bridge Silicon PLX PEX8311 PCI Express-to-Generic Local Bus Bridge
Device Endpoints Ten endpoints
Interrupts All interrupts multiplexed onto a single IRQ. All interrupt handling is performed by the Windows 32 application, with minimal kernel overhead.
Register-Alignment R8A66597 registers are aligned with a 200h offset between each consecutive physical address
Operating Modes OTG Dual Role; USB Device; Dual USB host
Miscellaneous Each Catena 1820 is assigned four Ethernet MAC addresses. The MAC addresses are programmed into EEPROM.
USB cables Five cable adapters: mini-B socket for device emulation; mini-A/B socket for dual-role device/OTG testing; dual standard-A socket; mini-B plus standard-A socket; mini-A/B plus standard-A socket.
Windows Drivers for Development System Low-level I/O port and interrupt access drivers, allowing byte, word or dword access to registers of the Catena 1820
Additional Software for Development System The basic kit includes an evaluation version of the MCCI USB DataPump, with a precompiled MCCI VSP application.
MCCI Class Drivers for USB Host System Evaluation copies of the following MCCI Class Drivers are shipped with the MCCI Catena 1820:  

  • MCCI Generic Class Driver for Windows
  • MCCI VSP (virtual serial port) Class Driver for Windows
Warranty 90 days

Development System Requirements

Development System Operating System Windows 7 through Windows 10, 32 or 64 bit.
Virtual Machine Support Because PCIe ExpressCards are normally not virtualized well, the 1820 normally cannot be accessed from a guest operating system.
Expansion Slot 34mm ExpressCard
C Compiler Visual Studio 2008 through Visual Studio 2015