FireWire Cable and its Versions

What is FireWire?

FireWire is a way to connect to a device or computer. FireWire is the name given by Apple to IEEE 1394, which is the serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and real-time data transfer. As a serial bus, FireWire transmits a bit of information at a time.

FireWire is a connector, which is used with the USB device. FireWire is used as a connector with USB to connect peripherals to your personal computer or laptop. FireWire is also called IEEE 1394. FireWire is a popular connector.

IEEE 1394 is the interface standard for high-speed communications and real-time data transfer serial bus. It was developed by Apple in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In which Apple worked mainly in collaboration with several companies such as Sony and Panasonic. So it's called Apple Interface FireWire. IEEE 1394 is the standard version of the High-Performance Serial Bus. FireWire provides a plug-and-play socket connection.

FireWire cable is a natural way to connect any peripherals with an IEE 1394 port, such as digital cameras, network-attached storage devices, external hard drives, and printers. FireWire is a connector used with USB to add other peripherals to your computer.

Where and how is FireWire used?

FireWire is often used to connect digital camcorders, external hard drives, and other devices. FireWire supports transferring data through FireWire connections at speeds of up to 480 Mbps. FireWire is used to connect other devices that have the advantage of transferring information very fast.

The eyesight camera used for chatting on Mac can be connected using a FireWire cable. In addition to connecting peripherals such as camcorders or external hard drives, FireWire can be used as a connector to transfer files between two connections. This means that two computers can also be connected via FireWire.

FireWire has the advantage of being able to transfer power to the device via the same cable that transfers data. The disadvantage of FireWire is that cables are more expensive.

Although most camcorders also include a USB2 connector, many of these new camcorders can only be used to download digital images. If you want to download the video, you will need a FireWire connection.

Like USB, FireWire supports a variety of connector types. The end of the cable that goes to the computer is the 6 pin cable, while the small connector that goes to the camcorder is the 4 pin cable.

How does FireWire work?

FireWire is a method of transferring information between digital devices, especially audio and video devices. FireWire is very fast for information transfer. The new version of FireWire achieves speeds up to 800 Mbps. You can connect up to 63 devices in a FireWire bus.

FireWire supports both Windows operating system and Mac OS.

Suppose you have a digital camcorder connected to your home computer. When your computer is enabled, it tracks all the devices connected to the bus. Each is called an address, a calculation.

FireWire is plug-and-play, so if you connect a new FireWire device to your computer, the operating system automatically detects it and retrieves information about the driver disk. If you have already installed the device, the computer activates it. FireWire devices are hot pluggable, which means they can be connected and disconnected at any time after the power is turned on.

FireWire Technical Information

FireWire can communicate with 63 perimeters. This is peer-to-peer device communication. The communication between the scanner and the printer allows the system to use without memory or CPU. FireWire also supports more than one host per bus. It is designed for plug and play and hot swapping. The copper cable used for the most common execution can be up to 4.5 meters (15 feet) long.

It is more flexible than most parallel SCSI cables. In its six-conductor or nine-conductor variants, it can supply up to 30 volts up to 45 watts per port. Medium utility devices are allowed to operate without a separate power supply.

FireWire devices implement the ISO / IEC 13213 "Configuration ROM" model for device configuration and identification to provide plug-and-play capabilities.

In tree topology FireWire equipment is conducted on the bus. Each device has a unique self-ID. One of the nodes, the root node, is selected and always has the highest ID. Self-IDs are given during the process, which happens after each bus reset.

FireWire is seriously capable of operating the system due to how more than one device interacts with the bus and allocates bandwidth to the bus devices. FireWire is capable of both asynchronous and isochronous transfer methods simultaneously. Isochronous data transfers are transfers for devices that require constant, guaranteed bandwidth.

Standards and Versions of FireWire

Given below is a list of standards and versions of FireWire.

FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394-1995) 

The original FireWire of IEEE 1394–1995 will now be known as the FireWire 400. It can transfer 100, 200, or 400 Mbit / s data. Actual transfer rates are 98.304, 196.608 and 393.216 Mbit / s, i.e., 12.288, 24.576 and 49.152 Mbit / s. These different transfer modes are commonly referred to as S100, S200, and S400.

The length of the cable is up to 4.5 meters. External hubs or internal hubs are usually FireWire equipment. S400 the maximum cable length of any configuration is up to 72 meters. A 6-conductor connector is commonly found on desktop computers and provides information with the power to the connected device.

Improvements (IEEE 1394a-2000)

An amendment called IEEE 1394A was published in 2000, which revised the original details. It includes asynchronous streaming, quick bus redesign, packet concentration, and power-saving suspended mode.

1394a also certified 4 conductor alpha connectors developed by Sony and trademarked as "i.LINK", already widely used in devices such as camcorders, most PC laptops, many PC desktops, and other small FireWire devices. The 4 conductor connector is fully data compatible with the 6 conductor alpha interface but lacks power connectors.

FireWire 800 (IEEE 1394b-2002) 

Apple introduced the IEEE 1394B 2002 FireWire "S800 bilingual" version. This feature and related products allow the transfer of 786.432 Mbit/s full-duplex through a new encoding scheme called Beta Mode. It is backward compatible with FireWire 400's slow rates and 6-conductor alpha connectors.

However, while the IEEE 1394A and IEEE 1394B standards are compatible, the connector of the FireWire 800 referred to as the beta connector is different than the alpha connector of the FireWire 400. Making legacy cables incompatible. The bilingual cable allows connections of older devices to the new port. In 2003, Apple introduced the first commercial products with a new connector.

 FireWire S 800 T (IEEE 1394 C-2006)

IEEE 1394C 2008 was published on June 8, 2007. It underwent a major technical improvement, namely the new port specification which provides 800 Mbit / s on the same 8P8C (Ethernet) with range 5e cable.

FireWire S 1600 and S 3200

In December 2007, the 1394 Trade Association announced that products using the S1600 and S3200 methods would be available by the end of 2008. Most of which were already defined in 1394b.

Comparison between FireWire and USB

While both USB and FireWire technologies provide similar results, there are fundamental differences between them. USB requires a bus master, especially a PC, which connects point-to-point with the USB slave. This allows for low efficiency or low-cost peripherals of the bus. Intelligent hubs are required to connect multiple USB devices to a single USB bus master.

In contrast, FireWire is basically a peer-to-peer network where any device can act as a host or client. It allows multiple devices to be connected to one bus.

The FireWire host interface supports DMA and memory-mapped devices. Allows transfer without loading host CPU with data and transfer and buffer-copy operations.

In addition, FireWire includes two data buses for each section of the bus network, while USB 3.0 has only one data bus. This means that FireWire can communicate in both directions simultaneously (full-duplex), while 3.0 USB communications can only communicate in one direction at any time (semi-duplex).

Operating System Support

Full support for IEEE 1394A and 1394B is available for Microsoft Windows, Free BSD, Linux, OS Pal-Mac OS .6..6 Mac OS, Net BSD, and Haiku. FireWire supports all versions of Windows, from Windows 98 to Windows 10, as well as Mac OS 8.6 and later, Linux, and many other operating systems. A maximum of 63 devices can be connected to a FireWire bus or controlling device via a daisy-chain. Even if you use equipment that supports different speeds, each of them can be plugged into the same bus. They can also operate at their own maximum speed.