The second hardware setup is a very common use case and is possible on all Gen 3 and newer C2000 devices. This setup uses the SCI or UART peripheral to export data out of the device and a bridge device to convert these messages to a USB protocol that the PC can understand. If using a LaunchPAD or controlCARD, both the primary and bridge devices are already present and correctly wired. The bridge device on the board has also already been flashed with a program that does the necessary protocol conversion (in most cases this is the XDS110 program). This just leaves the SCI/UART code on the primary device to be configured, which can be done automatically by the MCU Control Center tool. See more details in later sections.

Note that if there is no LaunchPAD or controlCARD at the user's disposal, but only a standalone part (for example, the C2000 part is already soldered onto a custom board), an additional bridge device is needed. Since this type of bridge device is commonly used in embedded development, there are many options available for hardware that can be purchased at a low cost (whether from Texas Instruments or a third party vendor).

Another option here for interfacing with a standalone (non-USB-present) device, is to purchase a C2000 device with an USB module and use MCU Control Center to generate and flash the bridge application.