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SEGGER introduces emPower-USB-Host, a compact low-cost development board.
With two USB host ports, many applications using USB peripherals can be realised with little effort.
Precompiled applications for barcode and smartcard readers, as well as POS displays, LTE sticks, and USB to LAN adapters are available for download, including complete projects for Embedded Studio with source code of these applications.
The applications are using SEGGER’s emUSB-Host software API, which makes accessing the different types of USB devices easy.
emPower-USB-Host uses the emLoad bootloader, pre-loaded into the flash of the MCU, to easily change applications in seconds using a USB flash drive.
Development of custom applications is also supported. The board has a debug connector, providing full access to the NXP LPC54605J512 MCU with its Cortex-M4 core.
Schematics and PCB layout of the board are available under a Creative Commons license. This way, the hardware can be used as a blueprint for custom devices using two USB host ports.
“The multitude of applications that can be realised with this little board and a combination of two USB devices is amazing. From input devices to sensors, terminals to loud speaker and connectivity devices such as WiFi, LAN, CAN, Bluetooth, MIDI, pretty much everything is available as USB device. Very little code is required to implement a complete application,” says Rolf Segger, Founder of SEGGER. “It provides a great platform for makers, with almost unlimited possibilities. Anybody can build the hardware based on our schematics and PCB layout, or simply buy a board. Designing software for the board is easy. Anybody with some knowledge of ‘C’ can build something useful, without soldering.”
