Dear William,
The chip is Silabs CP2103.
For standard usage, for example, if I plug the chip via USB cable to a Windows PC, then the OS will ask me to install a driver for the CP201X. After installing the driver, there will be a new COM port in the device manager. Then I can setup the baud rate for the COM port, and start using it.
But for Beaglebone Black, I don’t know if there is a driver for this specific chip. So I thought this is not possible. But I found this: <https://fleshandmachines.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/beaglebone-and-usb-serial-converter/#comment-136>
In this post the BBB seems to be able to communicate through the CP2012 chip. So this gives me some hope. But I tried to connect the chip with the BBB with a standard USB cable, and there is nothing showing up when I cat the /dev/ttyUSB0.
Do you think there is a way? Thanks!
Best,
Henry