Series Introduction

This post inaugurates[1] a new series describing how MCCI is approaching converting our Catena 1910 HSIC USB and MIPI.HSI analyzer/generator platform from PCIe to USB 3.0.  I figure it may be interesting (at least to MCCI people) to track, step by step, our thought processes.

The Catena 1911 is the combination of a fairly large FPGA and a compute platform.   Here's the gory detail from the schematic:

The 1910 uses PCIe to connect to a Windows system (through ExpressCard slots, usually). (You can see the product brief here.) The 1911 is a new version of the 1910 that uses PCIe or USB 3.0 -- more on that decision below.)

The remainder of this article is an overview of the system architecture for the 1910 and 1911 to give the interested reader an idea of the size of the problem space.  (The next article will go into the details of the software architecture.)

Gurinder Singh asked me a question on LinkedIn about my article in EE Times, "Measuring HSIC USB without disturbing the system". In that article, I discussed how MCCI measures HSIC USB with the Catena 1910 HSIC USB Protocol Analyser/Generator.

He asked:

How about sleep/wake. When the whole system resumes from sleep how is HSIC handle the reset condition?

Unfortunately, there's not enough room in the reply box. So I've answered the question here....

An interesting article today in RCR Wireless:

German computer expo CeBIT, believed to be the world's largest at more than twice the size of CES in Vegas, reports that participation in its machine-to-machine (M2M) section will double in size next year, for the second year in a row. Announced over the holiday week, the news is a major indicator of the commercial expectations invested in the M2M paradigm. Will that participation double again the next year, bringing eight-times as many M2M companies to CeBIT in 2013 as were there in 2010? That doesn't seem like such a long-shot.

This growth in M2M is a primary reason that I'm excited about the new USB MBIM 1.0 specification.

There's a simple reason. M2M product designers will want to buy modems (to access the cloud) based on what carrier is providing cloud access, and based on local availability of service. Many designers will prefer a standardized modem, and MBIM (by defining a standard control protocol, in place of the ubiquitous but non-standard "AT" command set) will allow them to switch modems with minimal retesting.

In addition to MBIM, another important technology is being adopted. HSIC USB is being widely adopted in embedded systems for connecting to things like connecting to the cloud-access module, and HSIC is both low power and fast. It uses essentially the same host software as normal USB 2.0, but the power consumed is much lower.

This ecosystem of standards, operating at different levels, will make it possible to create an industry of competing and cooperating vendors, and will make it possible for the market to grow very rapidly. Of course, the demand must be there too! But if RCR Wireless is correct, demand will not be a problem.

For more on this topic:

My previous article on MBIM mentions a little more about MCCI's early implementations of device code and our automated test tool MBIMDVT.

Sometimes specs are hard to find. MCCI's pretty active in developing products for that support High Speed Inter-Chip USB (HSIC USB) (such as the MCCI Catena 1910), and I'm often asked where to find the HSIC specification. The specification can be freely downloaded, but it's not published as a stand-alone document. Instead, it is part of the USB 2.0 Specification zip file.

The link to the USB 2.0 specification zip file (as of November 22, 2011) is:

MCCI's Catena 2210 is shipping now. It's an interesting little box designed for testing and evaluating NCM 1.0 compatible host systems. As its first application, the 2210 has been selected by the Car Connectivity Consortium (www.carconnectivity.org) as a component of their test suite for car electronics and other systems that use the MirrorLink™ Specification (formerly known as Terminal Mode) for providing a remote desktop and user interface for smart phones and other intelligent mobile devices. (You might not have heard of MirrorLink - it was formerly known as Terminal Mode; and the consortium was formerly known as the Terminal Mode Consortium, www.terminalmode.org.)

Here's a front view: