The
FW430 integrates both a controller and a three-port, 400 Mbit/s 1394A PHY
(see Fig. 1),
which means you only need the FW843 PHY if 800 Mbit/s 1394B operation is
desired. This gives a designer at least two nice aces-in-the hole.
connectivityZONE Products for the week of May 29, 2006
Agere Systems Says…
1394B Chipset Supports 800-Mbit/s Data Transport Between
Computers And 1394B Peripherals
The speed at which information can be moved between PCs and peripherals,
including high-performance hard disk drives can be doubled because of a
new chipset introduced today by Agere Systems. The company's chipset, called
the FW430 and FW843, transports voice, data and video signals moving between
computer and consumer electronics equipment at up to 800 Mbits/s -- twice
as fast as current 1394A 400 Mbit/s technology. Agere's chipset reaches
that speed because it adheres to the IEEE 1394B standard. This standard
consists of a common set of rules of operation being installed in a growing
amount of computer and consumer electronics equipment.
The chipset aims to meet requirements of PC users with the need to back up critical, large files including uncompressed digital video on high-performance external hard disk drives. Video developers would find the greater performance advantageous for backing up large files they create, doing so in half the time of the 1394A chip technology.
"PC manufacturers and consumers want faster peripheral connections
and this Agere chip meets those demands squarely," said Nathanial Grier,
senior marketing manager with Agere Systems. "PC manufacturers are
looking for cost-effective ways to implement 1394B on the main board. With
Agere's solution, they can cost effectively offer 1394A and 1394B using
one main board design, by deciding to populate the FW843 1394B PHY or not,
as needed. "1394A technology provides speeds of 400 Mbits/s extending
distances of 4.5 meters. 1394B performs at 800 Mbits/s bandwidth spanning
up to 4.5 meters.
analogZONE Says . . .
Sometimes me-too products can be a good thing, as is the case with the Agere 1394B chip set that is looking to grab a good chunk of the market from TI -- who pretty much owns the PHY portion of the 800 Mbit/s trade, at least for the moment. Actually, the chip set is a bit more than a me-too item because it brings a couple of nice value-added features to the game that give it above-average utility for the average engineer.
The
FW430 integrates both a controller and a three-port, 400 Mbit/s 1394A PHY
(see Fig. 1),
which means you only need the FW843 PHY if 800 Mbit/s 1394B operation is
desired. This gives a designer at least two nice aces-in-the hole.
First, you can build a single dual-mode 1394 motherboard
or blade that can run in A mode with a single chip (see Fig. 2a) and
be optionally configured for B operation by adding the second PHY and a
few jumper wires (see Fig.
2b). 
And
even when you pop in the faster FW843 3-port PHY device, you can still have
a bilingual product that can connect with older peripherals since any one
of its ports one (but only one at a time) can be configured to support slower
1394A traffic. Designers will also appreciate the small package size --
a significant plus in smaller motherboards and CardBus applications.
The
two-chip set is intended for computers or servers, but PHY can be mated
to a 1394-to-SAS/SATA bridge such as those from Oxford Semiconductor and Initio
for standalone storage applications.
Agere's 1394B chip set is sampling with production pricing set at $5.95 in 10-k piece lots.
|
| ||||
