A mixed success for IEEE 1394 - Opinion

Electronic News, Oct 7, 2002 by Brian O'Rourke

THE IEEE 1394 SERIAL bus, also known as Fire Wire, is a high-speed interface that has found initial acceptance among a variety of electronic devices, ranging from PCs to PC peripherals such as printers, scanners, and storage, to consumer electronics such as digital TVs and digital camcorders.

One of 1394's key features is a high-speed, 400Mbit/sec. data rate. It is also plug-and-play, meaning there is no need to reboot after connecting a device. In addition, it is flexible, allowing up to 64 devices to connect without repeaters. And it is peer-to-peer, requiring no central host, such as a PC, to operate.

The past year has been a mixed one for 1394. In 2002, 1394-enabled notebook PC shipments surpassed desktop PCs for the first time. In the consumer electronics space, shipments of the 1394-enabled Sony PlayStation 2 surpassed 30 million units worldwide in May. In addition, This refers to moving multiple audio and video streams around a household. Because 1394 is isochronous, it can deliver audio and video in real-time, which is not necessarily true of high-speed packet-based transport technologies such as Ethernet. The peer-to-peer capability also eliminates the need for PCs, although PCs may be part of the network.

A recent announcement brings multimedia home networking closer. In April, an updated standard called 1394b was approved by the IEEE. The 1394b standard offers multiple improvements over 1394a, the current standard, including increased speed, range and the ability to move over multiple types of wire, including Category 5 copper, plastic and glass optical fiber. This increased speed and versatility make transporting video and audio over 1394 much more feasible.

All in all, it was an eventful year for 1394. And signs for the future look promising. A recently released report from InStat/MDR, "IEEE 1394: FireWire Burning Slower," indicates the compound annual all digital camcorders shipping in 2002 have 1394 ports.

On the other hand, the release of the USB 2.0 specification affected 1394 in the PC peripheral space. The USB 2.0 spec offers speed comparable to 1394, while USB can be found in many more PCs than 1394. Because of this fact peripheral devices such as rewritable CD and DVD drives, external hard disk drives and PC cameras are expected to adopt USB 2.0 quickly, often at the expense of 1394.

The peer-to-peer capability of 1394 makes it an ideal transmission standard in the nascent multimedia home networking sector growth rate for 1394-enabled products is expected to increase by 25 percent per year from 2001 to 2006 (see chart above). Solid growth will continue as the interface penetrates more devices in the retail PC, digital camcorder and other consumer electronics markets, and emerges in new applications, such as automotive networks.

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Brian O'Rourke is a senor analyst with In-Stat/MDR. He can be reached at borourke@reedbusiness.com. In-Stat/MDR is owned by Reed Business Information, the parent company of Electronic News.