Oh Wow, FTDI did push malware to Windows drivers again.
For my part, I switched to MCP2221 when the original FTDIgate was out.
The MCP2221 looks very good and costs half for 100 at Digikey than the FT232 chip. Why do people still use the FTDI chip for simple USB UART dongles? And I like that it doesn't need an external oscillator, but it can generate a programmable clock output (not very accurate, but depending on the application this is all you need). It has internal flash, so no need for an additional external EEPROM to store customer VID/PID, and with the HID enumeration part you can use it as a USB I2C bridge.
Maybe you can answer some question, because you are already using this chip: From the datasheet it is not clear to me if it supports more than 115,000 baud. The formula says 12 MHz / x (with x integer), but in other chapters it says it supports only 300-115,200 baud. Can I use it with 1 MHz baud rate?
And the datasheet says it doesn't need a driver, it uses the standard virtual COM port driver on Windows. Does this mean you don't even need a custom INF file for it? I think it is possible in Windows, if the device enumerates as CDC USB device class (see
here). Is this the case for the MCP2221? And does MacOS and Linux support it?
Except for the really nice FIFO and JTAG communication modes in the FT2232H, the MCP2221 looks like the dream chip, if you want an easy USB connection for your device. I think I'll use this in one of my next products, no hassle with USB programming on a microcontroller, it just works, and you can even save an oscillator with this chip to clock the rest of your circuit, and use a cheaper microcontroller with no USB, so it might be even cost neutral or reduce overall cost.