18.08.2011

FTDI Introduces Arduino-Inspired Vinco Development Platform For Android Open Accessory Development

New toolchain offers Android Open Accessory class driver including source code

FTDI, available from Glyn High-Tech Distribution, has recently announced its commitment to supporting the Android Open Accessories initiative, thus allowing engineers to realize exciting new system designs that are compatible with tablets and smartphones utilising the highly popular Android operating system.

"FTDI is very excited about the new Android Open Accessories initiative and in response has decided to provide support for it in both the Vinculum II dual USB host/device controller IC and the low cost Vinco development board product offerings” states the company’s CEO and founder Fred Dart. “We expect this to have a major impact on the way engineers carry out future development projects, giving them access to a far greater breadth of device connectivity.”

This move will prove to be of great benefit to engineers using the company’s Arduino-inspired Vinco platform (which was released in November 2010) to create USB 2.0 connected embedded systems. The major advantage that Vinco has over other development platforms of this kind is that the host controller capability is already integrated into the board itself. This means that design engineers do not need to budget for an extra USB host controller card/IC to implement Android Open Accessories.

“As Vinco incorporates USB host controller functionality, it totally eliminates the need for any secondary host controller hardware to be added, thereby dramatically shortening the development process and reducing the bill of materials" Dart adds. “As a result more ambitious, imaginative and cost-effective designs will be possible.”

Vinco is a cost effective Vinculum-II (VNC2) development platform inspired by Arduino. The Vinco is a dual channel USB Host/Device Controller is targeted at rapid development and prototyping of USB Host/Device interfaces. Vinco is a superset of the Arduino Duemilanove / Uno with 2 extra rows of headers providing an extra 10 pins and can be programmed using a subset of standard ANSI ‘C’ using the FTDI free of charge software development environment, consisting of development tools, software drivers and libraries.

The Vinco features an 8-channel, 10Bit ADC, PWM interface and supports connectivity to a wide range of application boards developed by the Arduino open-source community. These include Ethernet, motor control, LCD and many others applications.

The module uses a VNC2-64Q package to facilitate 38 GPIO options on 0.1” pitch header pins. A 10 bit A/D converter has also been added to offer connectivity to analogue inputs. This A/D converter can be read by the VNC2-64Q SPI host interface.

For USB connectivity the module includes one USB type A connector for a USB host port and one mini-B connector for a USB slave port to provide access to the VNC2-64Q USB ports.

Toolchain

The latest release of its Vinculum-II (VNC2) development Toolchain, version 1.4.2 offers improved reliability and performance over previous releases, and includes the following new features:

• Android Open Accessory class driver. Sample VNC2 application and Android application source code are included. (Requires Gingerbread 2.3.4 or Honeycomb 3.1 or later).
• Source code for Android Open Accessory, CDC and Printer USBHost class drivers included.
• Performance improvements for various drivers including USBHost, USBSlave and FAT File System.
• Ethernet (WizNet 5100 via SPI) and RTC (via SPI) drivers added.
• Improvements to reflashing API for firmware update from Flash disks.
• Introduction of new API for run time access to unused FlashROM pages.
• Precompiled samples for FT232 to UART and CDC Modem to UART applications.
• AppWizard now supports Vinco projects. All samples updated to use AppWizard allowing them to be easily reconfigured.

For documentation and other details, please check out this Featured Product at Glyn website’s home page. 

To purchase the Vinco board and accessories, please visit our Glyn Store.