Microchip MCP2210 USB-to-SPI Protocol Converter

mindrobots

Looks interesting.....don't have a clue what to do with it.

Under $2 in quantity.

Microchip MCP2210 USB-to-SPI Protocol Converter is the simplest, smallest, and most cost-effective device for adding USB-certified connectivity to SPI-based systems. This space-constrained Microchip USB-to-SPI protocol converter features nine flexible GPIO pins that can be configured as standard digital I/O pins or in alternate configurations. The MCP2210 converter utilizes the USB HID class supported by Windows®, Linux, and Mac OS® operating systems. This Microchip converter is a 100% plug-and-play solution, making it even simpler to add USB to existing designs for data collection, transfer, and analysis as well as many other USB functions.

Details from Mouser

Mike Green

There are a lot of useful devices that use the SPI protocol. This chip lets you connect them directly to a PC using USB. You can also configure the 9 I/O pins to work as general purpose I/O pins for controlling other devices. It looks like a mouse / keyboard / joystick device to the PC although the mouse / keyboard / joystick driver won't know what to do with it. You have to write your own device driver, particularly since there's no standard for how SPI devices behave. At least the device driver is a user-level driver. It doesn't have to have any special privileges and doesn't need to be installed separately from your program.

mindrobots

Interesting, I didn't think of hanging it off a PC to give SPI access to a PC, I was thinking of hanging off a Propeller SPI bus to give USB HID access from a Propeller via SPI.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

mindrobots wrote:

I was thinking of hanging off a Propeller SPI bus to give USB HID access from a Propeller via SPI.

Interfacing a USB mouse, say, to the Prop would require a USB host adapter, like the Vinculum. The Microchip part is a slave adaptor.

-Phil