Bridge IC Is Storage OEMs’ Ticket To IEEE-1394 Links

With the OXFW900 native bridge chip, ATA/ATAPI (IDE) peripherals can be provided with FireWire (IEEE1394-1395) connectivity. The chip, with its integrated Serial Bus Protocol, can use generic device drivers available in the Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOD operating systems. As a result, it's suitable for smart cable or tailgate interface applications in removable-media drives and in CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD and hard-disk drives. The bridge chip lets manufacturers of these peripherals quickly produce plug-and-play FireWire versions of their products. A three-chip solution using the OXFW900 IC requires only the addition of an external 1394 PHY and ROM. Sustained IDE data-transfer rate is 25 Mbps.