The First Silicon in the New 1394 High-Performance Serial Bus

Universal I/O solution connects portables, desktops, and peripheral devices as never before. It's the proposed IEEE P1394 High-Performance Serial Bus. It offers real-time data transfer for multimedia capabilities via a low-cost, six-wire, copper interface. This unique feature makes 1394/Firewire a logical solution for time-sensitive applications such as video-conferencing and embedded audio. In fact, Byte magazine named 1394 "the most significant new technology" of the fall COMDEX '93 show.

1394/Firewire Chipset

The industry's first fully compliant 1394/Firewire chipset is now available from TI. This full-chipset solution is a breakthrough in this emerging interface standard.

Two chip solution

The chipset is composed of two devices: a physical layer chip, TSB11C01DL, and the link layer controller chip, TSB12C01APZ. The TSB11C01 physical layer chip, a mixed signal device, is a 5-V, 3-port device operating at 100 Megabits per second. It includes the logic necessary to perform the arbitration and bus initialization functions required by the 1394 draft standard. The TSB12C01 link layer chip transmits and receives correctly formatted 1394 packets and supports isochronous data transfers. It contains an on-board, user configurable 512 by 33 First-In First-Out (FIFO) memory as well as the configuration registers needed to operate the device. The link layer device is designed to operate up to 400 Megabits per second.

Other features of the 1394/Firewire Serial Bus include daisy chaining and branching capabilities supporting up to 63 devices. Also, 1394/Firewire eliminates the need for ID switches, allows the user to perform "live" cable insertions without damaging the network and removes the need for active termination.

Fewer Ports, Faster Data Rates

This leading-edge technology will allow you to potentially eliminate current I/O solutions such as SCSI, RS-232, and conventional parallel ports. With our complete 1394/Firewire chipset from Texas Instruments, you have the capability of designing in one common interface for all applications, such as HDD and CD-ROM, digital cameras and printers. Because of its many features, the 1394/Firewire interface provides a crossover technology for the industrial, computer and consumer markets.

Product features

Vol 9, Summer, 1994