Wi-Fi SoCs with USB interface

24 November 2021 Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT

USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an industry standard that enables communication between a host controller and peripherals or other devices. A USB interface is integrated into Espressif Systems’ ESP32-S series of SoCs (systems-on-chip). Combined with the SoCs’ Wi-Fi functionality, the USB interface can be used for video streaming over Wi-Fi, accessing the Internet through a 4G hotspot, connecting to a wireless USB disk and many other applications.

More specifically, the ESP32-S2 has various peripheral interfaces including SPI, I²S, I²C, UART, LED PWM, LCD, camera, ADC, DAC and other common interfaces. On top of that, it has a full-speed USB On-The-Go interface that supports both host and device modes. This way, the ESP32-S2 operates either as a USB host connecting to various USB devices, or as a USB device communicating directly with a computer or a mobile device. To ensure a better user experience, the native USB interface of the ESP32-S2 can be used to download firmware at a higher speed compared to the traditional UART interface.

In addition, the USB-to-serial port of the SoC allows transparent data transmission between the USB virtual COM port and the UART port. With a single ESP32-C3/S3, a USB-to-serial adaptor is no longer required for serial port debugging and printing.