Category: consumer electronics protocols

What is USB Technology USB is a technology which standardize the connection of peripherals to personal computers. It has largely replaced interfaces such as PS/2 connector (used for keyboard), ADB Connector (used for mouse), Parallel Ports (used for printers) and Game ports (used for video game consoles) which are used to connect different devices to computers. USB technology made it possible to connect all such different devices to computer via single port USB port. How Does USB does that:  USB is a bus protocol in which our computer is USB MASTER and devices connected to it are termed as USB DEVICES. USB DEVICES Can be anything: keyboard, mouse, flash drives, hard disk, Audio Devices, Card Readers and all devices you can think of which are connected to USB. Now in USB protocol there is the concept of USB descriptor via whichUSB host that is computer can determine which USB device is connected and correspondingly detect which electronic device is it. The USB is specified to be an industry-standard extension to the PC architecture with a focus on PC peripherals that enable consumer and business applications. What is USB technology Architecture? USB hosts are also known as master devices, and they initiate all the communication that occurs over the USB bus. Typically, a computer or other controller is considered to be the master, only responding to other devices if requesting certain information. The peripheral device(USB Device), or the slave device, is connected to the host device, and is programmed to provide the host device with the information it needs to operate. Typically, peripheral devices include USB flash drives, computer mice and keyboards, cameras, and other such devices. There can be multiple USB devices but only one USB master would be there. The USB system uses the tiered star topology, in which 127 different USB slaves can be connected on the same USB bus.  What Are USB Packets? The amount of data transmitted in USB is called ‘packet’. The data transfer that can occur within the USB protocol is discussed below. The data of the USB protocol is transmitted within packets LSB first. There are mainly four types of USB packets:  Token packet  Data packet Handshake packet  Start of the Frame packet Data exchange between the host and device is known as USB transactions. One can think of USB transactions as complete data exchange that occurs between a host and device where all necessary packets are transmitted. Each USB transaction is composed of either 2 or 3 packets, depending on the transfer type being used. Each USB packet is designed from various fields like a Sync field, a Packet ID (PID) field, ADDR (Address) field, ENDP (Endpoint) field, CRC (cyclic redundancy check) field, and EOP (end of packet) field.  USB Packet Field Description Sync (8 or 32 bits): In USB protocol, every USB packet will begin with a SYNC field which is normally utilized to synchronize the transmitter & the receiver to transmit the data precisely. This field is long with 8 bits at high & low speed otherwise 32-bits long for maximum speed & it is utilized to synchronize the CLOCK of the transmitter & receiver. The final 2-bits will indicate wherever the PID field begins. PID(8 bits): The packer identifier field within the USB protocol is mainly used to recognize the packet type that is being transmitted. The length of this field is 8 bits long where the upper 4- bits recognize the kind of packet & lower 4- bits are the bitwise complement of the upper 4- bits. The resulting format of the PID(Packet identifier field) is shown below →  → The PID Value: Indicates the type of packet/group( out of 4 one) and the format of the packet and the type of error detection applied to the packet.  → PIDs are divided into four coding groups: token, data, handshake, and special, with the first two transmitted PID bits (PID<0:1>) indicating which group. Address field(7 bits): The address field of the USB protocol indicates which packet device is mainly designated for. The 7-bits length simply allows support of 127 devices. The ADDR field is specified for IN, SETUP, and OUT tokens and the PING and SPLIT special token. The address (ADDR) field specifies the address, that is either the source or destination of a data packet, depending on the value of the token PID. Endpoint Field(4 bits):An additional four-bit endpoint (ENDP) field, shown in Figure 8-3, permits more flexible addressing of functions in which more than one endpoint is required. The endpoint field is defined for IN, SETUP, and OUT tokens and the PING special token. Cyclic Redundancy Checks: Cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs) are used to protect all non-PID fields in token and data packets. In this context, these fields are considered to be protected fields.All CRCs are generated over their respective fields in the transmitter before bit stuffing is performed. Similarly, CRCs are decoded in the receiver after stuffed bits have been removed. Data Field: The data field may range from zero to 1,024 bytes and must be an integral number of bytes. Figure 8-4 shows the format for multiple bytes. Data packet size varies with the transfer type. Types of USB Packets 1. Token Packet: A token consists of a PID, specifying either IN, OUT, or SETUP packet type and ADDR and ENDP fields. The PING special token packet also has the same fields as a token packet. Token Packet  is initiated by the host and determines if the host will send or receive data. For OUT and SETUP transactions, the address and endpoint fields uniquely identify the endpoint that will receive the subsequent Data packet.  Setup – Used to begin control transfers.  Out – Informs the USB device that the host wishes to send information.  For IN transactions, these fields uniquely identify which endpoint should transmit a Data packet. For PING transactions, these fields uniquely identify which endpoint will respond with a handshake packet. An IN PID defines a Data transaction from a device to the host. OUT