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FireWire

Justin GarciaMichael RipleyStefani Ryan

Nathan Wilkinson

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Introduction to FireWire

• FireWire is the Apple trademark for the IEEE 1394 standard

• Sony refers to their implementation as i.Link

• It is the industry standard for high-performance device connections

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History of FireWire

• Introduced by Apple in 1995 as IEEE 1394-1995

• In 2000, the standard received minor revisions and was renamed 1394a

• In 2002, the standard received major revisions and was renamed 1394b

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What is FireWire?

• 1394a uses the following connections:– 4 or 6 pin proprietary cable– Cables can reach 4.5 meters

• 1394b can use any of the following:– 4, 6, or 9 pin proprietary cable– Category 5 UTP cable– Glass/Plastic optical fiber– Cables can reach 100 meters

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What is FireWire?

• Provides up to 800 Mbps bandwidth• Can provide a guaranteed bandwidth

stream with lossy packet delivery• Can also provide guaranteed delivery at

an uncertain rate• Guaranteed bandwidth transmission is

referred to as isochronous• Guaranteed delivery is referred to as

asynchronous

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What is FireWire?

• Can provide up to 45 watts of power over the bus

• New standards define methods for speaking TCP/IP over the bus, making FireWire an effective networking system

• System can address 63 devices per bus• Up to 1023 buses can be bridged

together

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Advantages of FireWire

• Device communication is peer-to-peer

• A “root node” is elected by all the devices on a bus

• The root node coordinates all activities on the bus

• A new root node is chosen within 300 microseconds of any addition or removal of a device from the bus

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Advantages over USB

• No host computer is required, as all devices are capable of serving as the root node

• FireWire is more efficient at utilizing the bus, and therefore faster than USB

• FireWire can use multiple cable types

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Uses of FireWire

• Digital multimedia (audio and video)

• Other uses:– Printers– Scanners– External hard drives– Optical disk writers (CD/DVD±R/RW)– Video game consoles

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Device Connection Bandwidth Comparison

0

200

400

600

800

Bandwidth (Mbps)

Serial

Parallel

USB 1.1

SCSI - 1

SCSI - 2

Ultra SCSI

Wide Ultra SCSI

1394a

USB 2.0

1394b

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Conclusion

• FireWire is faster, more efficient, and easier to use than most other interconnects

• With the introduction of IEEE 1394b, FireWire is poised for immense growth in the coming years