What is an USB UART and what are its functions?

[siddharthakala]

Hi,

I am looking to buy the Nexys 3 FPGA Board, but dont know what a USB UART is?? Is it a UART system with USB instead of a RS232 port. i.e. the previous boards that I worked on had RS232 port and I used the same to implement my UART design. Is USB UART the same thing, only with a USB instead of an RS232 port for connecting with a computer or other UART system??

 

[Marcel Majoor]

Re: What is a USB UART??

An USB UART is, most likely, an integrated USB-to-RS232/TTL converter.
Have a look here FTDI Products. It is one of the manufacturers of that kind of converters.

 

[mrflibble]

Re: What is a USB UART??

The USB UART has a simple 2-wire RX/TX interface on the FPGA side, and appears as a virtual serial port on the host PC. So in windows country thats COM3: for example, and in linux that's /dev/ttyUSB0 for example.

On the PC the software can then be a terminal program like hyperterminal, minicom, or your own program using serial port. The Nexys3 uses an FT232, so the link by Marcel Majoor should help you out.

Hope that helps...

 

[milind.a.kulkarni]

Re: What is a USB UART??

USB UART concept become famous bcz many PC an laptops are not comming with serial port now a day thus ....there is serial port output one can get using a USB serial device in market ....and you can access the USB connected to your PC as UART port

 

[siddharthakala]

Re: What is a USB UART??

Thanks a lot everyone. I got it

 

[ragav4456]

https://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/DataSheets/ICs/DS_FT232R.pdf