Hacker News Reader

Comment by flashingleds | Hacker News Reader

If anyone out there is looking for alternatives, last time this happened I switched to the MCP2221 from microchip. It's been in about 6 hobby projects now and I'm very happy with it. Half the price in small quantities and easier to hand solder (14SO or even DIP vs 28TSSOP)

View on HN

It's also worth mentioning that it uses the USB-CDC ("communications device class") standard driver, which is long supported/included in windows and linux and intended for use by arbitrary manufacturers.

The situation is not unlike that of usb keyboard/mice which use the HID ("human interface device") standard driver (which MCP2221 apparently also supports). So there won't be any argument or shenanigans about whether any third-party chip should be allowed to be compatible with this commonly available driver.

Does it use a class CDC interface? Or does it require special drivers like the FTDI and Prolific chips? Are the drivers available for all OS's?

Answering my own question, it looks like it's a plain-Jane CDC device, which seems to me like really great progress - now that we've put Windows XP behind us, these chips really should be using CDC rather than proprietary drivers.

Cypress also has a bunch of USB UART chips, with comparable ones being about half the price of their FTDI equivalents.

Bump for MCP2221. That's the one we ended up settling on. IMHO its cheaper, better, and easier to get in the small (100's) quantity we use them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com