> Controlling USB-C ports is so complicated that Cypress's IC has a 32-bit ARM processor ...it's a Cortex-M0, 4k RAM, 32k Flash. By today's standards, this is

> Controlling USB-C ports is so complicated that Cypress's IC has a 32-bit ARM processor ...it's a Cortex-M0, 4k RAM, 32k Flash. By today's standards, this is a very small controller. For the Arduino-Crowd, it's roughly equivalent to the ATmega32u4 on the Arduino Leonardo, but with a Cortex-M0 instead of the 8-bit AVR. Both, by the way, run 16bit opcodes. -- But I get your point, it's nevertheless a lot of "brains" for what people wish would be a dumb cable. > Either end can be the master, and either end can be the power source. Unfortunately, this is what people expect from a USB device these days. The poor little "ID" pin on micro-USB was overloaded with functions already: There are interface chips that can distinguish 40 or so different resistor combinations on various lines (see the ancient TSU6721, which was used in the Galaxy-SII). So, I think requiring some intelligence at least for the more complicated combinations really makes sense. Regarding the number of pins, I don't think it's that bad: USB2+/- has stayed the same, just bridged to two pins each. USB3 Tx/Rx is still two differential pairs, with two extra differential pairs for "future use", Display-Port, ... The ID-pin with resistors to Gnd/Vcc just has been massively upgraded to a serial protocol spoken on the CC1/CC2 pins. So, for me, after reading a little bit about it, I now see USB-C as Micro-USB3 plus upgraded ID-Pins plus two spare differential pairs... But I was very skeptical at first, too.