Now the notebook is seldom with the serial port, and the serial port is to do the electronic design must be one of the communication interface, fortunately, USB to the serial port more convenient, the market commonly used USB to serial port chip has many, the most common has FT232 ,PL2303,CH340 Three kinds, these three kinds of I say separately, at the same time to tidy up their drivers, the Internet to find a lot of drivers, there are many people released, to find the driver of course to the official website to find, so that the most reliable. The drivers I gave below are from the official website and can be downloaded to different system drivers on the page.
Three commonly used chip stability and price are consistent,ft232>ch340>pl2303,PL2303 used the most, because the cheapest, many domestic boards on board, including USB to serial cable is the chip, a few dollars a piece, the circuit is simple, do a simple serial port application can, but do embedded development such as the use of super-terminal baud rate in the 115200 , there may be delays and other phenomena. CH340 is Nanjing Qin Heng chip, do well, for the general application can be fully satisfied. The best is FT232 stable, reliable, in many USB to the serial port download line, the programmer uses this kind.
Here is the finishing drive.
FT232 , support XP WIN7 , etc., find yourself on the download page.
Http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
PL2303 , this page includes many drivers such as XP WIN7 WinCE .
Http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31
CH340 , including XP Win7 -digit
Http://www.wch.cn/product/usb/ch340.asp
Http://www.wch.cn/download/list.asp?id=65
Add: MAX232 can convert 232 level to TTL level, then directly connect the microcontroller and other chip circuits.
USB to serial port ft232/pl2303/ch340 comparison