I have quite a number of FTDI's FT232RL chips on boards that are failing. When directly looped back Tx to Rx, all I get is $00 no matter what is sent. I have tried this with the latest version of the driver 2.08.30, with 2.08.28 and with 2.08.14. Most of these have the date code of 1213c. I know there were problems in the past and using the older driver (.14) solved them. My latest batch of boards has a 95% failure rate.
I have been in contact with ftdi (limited helpfulness) and with my supplier. I have had great luck with FTDI products in the past (with the driver rollback) but now that isn't even working.
I'd send back the 95% of the boards that don't work in a heartbeat, but I still need something to replace them with. I liked the FTDI chip because it WAS more robust that the competition. The competition doesn't sink or source enough and I'd like not to have to re-design my circuits.
Any thoughts on solving this one?