1 Typical Applications
 USB Bridge with Type-C/PD3.0 (chargers and devices).
 Up to 60W power delivery via USB PD and/or Type-C port.
 Get power from USB device functions, e.g. portable USB host needs charging when USB is connected.
 Single chip USB to four channels UART (RS232, RS422 or RS485) or Bit-Bang interfaces.
 Single chip USB to 2 JTAG channels plus 2 UARTS.
 Single chip USB to 1 JTAG channel plus 3 UARTS.
 Single chip USB to 1 SPI channel plus 3 UARTS.
 Single chip USB to 2 SPI channels plus 2 UARTS.
 Single chip USB to 2 Bit-Bang channels plus 2 UARTS.
 Single chip USB to 1 SPI channel, plus 1 JTAG channel plus 2 UARTS.
 Single chip USB to 2 I2C channels plus 2 UARTS.
 Numerous combinations of 4 channels.
 Upgrading Legacy Peripheral Designs to USB.
 Field Upgradable USB Products.
 Cellular and cordless phone USB data transfer cables and interfaces.
 Interfacing MCU / PLD / FPGA based designs to USB.
 PDA to USB data transfer.
 USB Smart Card Readers.
 USB Instrumentation.
 USB Industrial Control.
 USB FLASH Card Reader / Writers.
 Set Top Box PC – USB interface.
 USB Digital Camera Interface.
 USB Bar Code Readers.
4 Function Description
The FT4233HP/FT4232HP is a USB 2.0 High Speed (480Mb/s) to UART/MPSSE IC with USB Type-C/PD ports. It has the capability of being configured in a variety of industry standard serial interfaces. The FT4233HP/FT4232HP has four independent configurable interfaces. Two of these interfaces can be configured as UART, bit-bang mode or JTAG, SPI, I2C mode, using the MPSSE, with independent baud rate generators. The remaining two interfaces can be configured as UART or bit-bang.
The FT4233HP has two Type-C/PD ports, with PD1 port supporting both power sink and source roles, and PD2 port (FT4233HPQ and FT4233HPL only) works as a power sink port. Both PD ports support 5V3A, 9V3A, 12V3A, 15V3A and 20V3A PDO profiles, and these profiles are configurable through the external EEPROM at power-up or reset. PD1 port share the same Type-C connector with USB data, and PD2 port is power port only without USB data.
4.1 Key Features
USB Type-C/PD Controller. FT4233HP/FT4232HP supports USB Type-C specification version 1.3. The FT4233H/ FT4232HP integrated with USB PD 3.0 controller. USB PD port 1 is USB PD 3.0 with the USB 2.0 function. The first USB PD power is initial power sink when local power source is presented, it can become power source via PD negotiation. FT4233HP has a second USB PD sink only port to connect to PD power source. FT4233HP/FT4232HP USB PD 3.0 function is backward compatible to USB PD 2.0 standard.
USB High Speed to Quad Interface. The FT4233HP/FT4232HP is a USB 2.0 High Speed (480Mbits/s) to four independent flexible/configurable serial interfaces. This function is backward compatible to FT4232H.
Functional Integration. The FT4233HP/FT4232HP integrates a USB protocol engine which controls the physical Universal Transceiver Macrocell Interface (UTMI) and handles all aspects of the USB 2.0 High Speed interface. The FT4233HP/FT4232HP include an integrated +1.2V Low Drop-Out (LDO) regulator and 12MHz to 480MHz PLL. It also includes 2kbytes Tx and Rx data buffers per channel. The FT4233HP/FT4232HP effectively integrates the entire USB protocol on a chip.
MPSSE. Multi-Purpose Synchronous Serial Engines (MPSSE), capable of speeds up to 30 Mbits/s, provides flexible synchronous interface configurations.
Data Transfer Rate. The FT4233HP/FT4232HP support a data transfer rate up to 12 Mbit/s when configured as a UART (RS232/RS422/RS485) interface. Please note the FT4233HP/FT4232HP do not support the baud rates of 7 Mbaud 9 Mbaud, 10 Mbaud and 11 Mbaud. Only limited high speed baud rates are possible down to 6Mbaud, below this rate the divider and sub-integer dividers start to have effect offering a wider range of baud rates.
Latency Timer. This is used as a timeout to flush short packets of data back to the PC. The default is 16ms, but it can be altered between 1ms and 255ms. At 2ms latency you get a packet transfer on every high speed micro frame. Lower values may reduce latency but may also increase USB bandwidth usage and reduce efficiency.
4.2 Functional Block Descriptions
Type-C/PD PHY and Controller. The FT4233HP (FT4233HPQ and FT4233HPL only) has two Type-C/PD ports. Each port has Type-C/PD required Physical Layer (PHY) and controllers. PD1 port has built-in VCONN switches supporting up to 660mW VCONN power.
PD Policy Engine. The PD policy engine is a 32bit RISC processor with 8kB data RAM and 48kB ROM. It manages both PD port 1 and port 2. Default PD configurations are stored in the ROM code. PD1 port can act as power sink or source role, supporting both normal power role swap. PD2 port (FT4233HPQ and FT4233HPL only) acts as power sink, which can be connected to a PD charger. By using an external EEPROM, it is possible to change the PD configuration based on specific use cases, such as Port 1 sink, Port 1 sink/source or PD charge through from Port 2 to Port 1. PDO voltage/current profiles can also be customised using EEPROM.
I2C Slave Interface. The application can also choose to control the PD policy by external MCU through I2C interface. In this case the built-in PD policy engine is halted. The external MCU has full control to the two PD controller registers (FT4233HPQ and FT4233HPL only) through I2C access. An interrupt signal is also provided, so that an interrupt to an external MCU could be asserted when a PD event occurs.