New Cypress Kit Simplifies Design of Products That Use USB Storage

Business Wire, July 21, 2004

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Helps Developers of PC-Based Peripherals and Non-PC-Hosted Appliances Leverage USB-Enabled Flash and Hard Disk Drives

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY), the market share leader in USB, today announced that it has begun sampling the USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit (RDK). This new hardware/software solution enables design engineers -- even those with little knowledge of USB or mass-storage class drivers -- to easily develop products that host USB storage devices.

The new kit, designed for use with Cypress's EZ-Host(TM) family of USB embedded host controllers, supports several types of USB mass-storage class peripherals including USB hard drives, NAND flash drives, mass storage class-compliant MP3 players and digital still cameras. Key target applications include set-top boxes, portable media players, MP3 players, data banks and other products that exchange data with these storage devices. The kit also supports internal storage devices, such as hard drives, via the EZ-Host controller's on-chip IDE interface.

The value of Cypress's USB Host Mass Storage RDK, however, is not limited to designers of PC-hosted multimedia peripherals. Many products outside the PC world -- including automotive consoles, exercise equipment and vending machines that rely on USB-based storage devices to provide information or record user data -- can also benefit.

The USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit (CY4640) includes the USB host software stack, a mass-storage class driver, a file system and associated supporting software modules, as well as a sample application layer and hardware that enable customers to evaluate a design at various stages of development.

"Cypress' USB Host Mass Storage RDK enables a wide array of new or existing products to communicate directly with USB mass-storage devices, without relying on an PC," said Brian Booker, USB Host and OTG product manager in Cypress's Personal Communications Division. "This kit is the latest in a series of offerings from Cypress designed to simplify the integration of USB technology into PC systems, peripherals and many other appliances."

Pricing, Availability and Photo:

The USB Host Mass Storage Reference Design Kit is sampling in limited quantities today and priced starting at $395 (MSRP). Full production of the kit will commence in September. For more information, visit Cypress online at http://wwww.cypress.com. A photo of the kit can be downloaded from: http://www.cypress.com/support/link.cfm?mr=msrdk.

About EZ-Host

Featuring a 16-bit RISC controller, large memory and low power, Cypress's EZ-Host embedded controllers operate as either a host or peripheral device, depending on the application. EZ-Host (CY7C67300) is a multiport controller featuring two individually configurable two-port serial interface engines (SIEs) and a configurable I/O block that can connect to numerous standard interfaces. The product is targeted at wired USB devices ranging from DVD players, set top boxes, Internet appliances and print servers. Cypress's USB embedded host family of products also includes EZ-OTG (CY7C67200), a USB controller based on the USB On-The-Go (OTG) protocol that enables direct connectivity between portable devices such as cell phones, PDAs, video and still cameras, MP3 players and mass storage peripherals.

About Cypress

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY) is Connecting From Last Mile to First Mile with high-performance solutions for personal, network access, enterprise, metro switch and core communications system applications. Cypress Connects using wireless, wireline, digital and optical transmission standards, including USB, Fibre Channel, SONET/SDH, Gigabit Ethernet and DWDM. Leveraging its process and system-level expertise, Cypress makes industry-leading physical layer devices, framers and network search engines, along with a broad portfolio of high-bandwidth memories, timing technology solutions and reconfigurable mixed-signal arrays. More information about Cypress is accessible online at www.cypress.com.

Cypress and the Cypress logo are registered trademarks of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. "Connecting From Last Mile to First Mile," "EZ Host" and "Cypress Connects" are trademarks of Cypress. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.