IEEE 1394

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OVERVIEW........................................................................................................................3
OPERATION......................................................................................................................4
BUS ARCHITECTURE AND ARBITRATION................................................................6
DATA TRANSMISSION....................................................................................................7
CONNECTION MEDIUM.................................................................................................9
FEATURES......................................................................................................................10
APPLICATIONS..............................................................................................................11
1394 VS. 1394B.................................................................................................................12
References...................................................................................................................13

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 Overview

IEEE-1394 bus began life in 1986. Designed by Apple, it was to be a universal

interconnect, an alternative to the multitude of cables required to connect printers,
modems, external fixed-disk drives, scanners, and other peripherals to PCs. The resulting
port integration and consolidation of circuit board space aimed to achieve an overall
reduction in product cost and complexity.

Known as Firewire to Apple, i.LINK to Sony Corp. and standardized in 1995 as

IEEE1394, this protocol is a high performance, fast external serial bus standard which
looks to dominate the digital data transfer era.

The 1394 bus can be thought of as being a linear electronic path on which several devices
share information. As you connect 1394 devices using a common series of cables, you are
connecting them to the 1394 bus with each device having a direct digital link to each
other, capable of peer-to-peer communication without the need for a host computer.
Intended for devices with high data rates, FireWire’s high, fixed bandwidth capabilities
and ability to successfully multiplex simultaneous different digital signals yields it a
unique and powerful protocol.

Once considered “stand alone” products, consumer electronics devices such as

camcorders, televisions and VCRs are now featuring the latest in PC technology. The
goal of manufacturers... to merge consumer electronics and computer peripherals into
one. It is the IEEE1394 bus that provides the critical interface technology that’s supports
the convergence of these two disciplines. By ensuring the digital data remains digital
from source to destination, the possibility of loss of data integrity is reduced.

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 Operation

When the host computer boots up, it begins the task of querying all devices connected to
the bus, assigning each an address. This is known as enumeration. Although a device may
not be present upon initial power up, 1394 supports Plug and Play, allowing for
additional devices to be connected at any time. If this occurs, the operating system
automatically detects, installs and enables the device before beginning communication.

Upon attachment to the bus, a bus reset is triggered and the entire bus is reset and
reconfigured automatically. This configuration occurs locally without the intervention of
a host computer. This bus initialization consists of 3 phases:

I. Bus initialization
II. Tree identification
III. Self identification.

During the first phase all nodes are informed of a bus reset occurrence. In the succeeding
phase the topology of the bus is determined. The last phase is responsible for assigning
every device a Physical ID. Firewire utilizes 64 bit fixed addressing based on the
standard IEEE1212 developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Each packet sent by a device over the 1394 bus has the following composition:

 A 10-bit Bus ID
o Determines which firewire bus the data originated from
o Maximum of 1023 (210) buses (connected by bridges)
 A 6-bit Physical ID
o Identifies which device on the bus sent the data
o Maximum of 63 (26) nodes daisy chained per bus
 A 48-bit storage Area
o Capable of addressing 256 Terabytes of information.

Figure 1.
64bit fixed addressing

 The Bus ID and Physical ID (16 bits) are collectively referred to as the Node ID
and allows for over 64 000 (216) devices to be connected.

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  For practical purposes, there can only be 63 nodes on each bus, because the last
node is used as a broadcast address, which addresses the entire bus.

The Physical ID – and thus so also the Node ID - of the device is dynamically generated
(as opposed to SCSI for example whereby static addresses must be assigned to each
device) To recognize a device after a bus reset the 64 bit extended unique identifier must
be used for unique addressing.

Special integrated circuit chips implement the FireWire protocol. Like Ethernet and other
high-speed digital data transmission systems, FireWire is a layered transport system. The
IEEE-1394 standard defines three layers :

I. Physical layer
II. Link layer
III. Transaction layer

Figure 2.
http://www.usbyte.com/common/Firewire_Interface.htm

The Physical layer provides the signals required by the FireWire bus as well as providing
initialization and arbitration services. This basically means that it assures only one node
is sending data at a time. It includes the electrical signaling, mechanical connectors and
cabling, arbitration mechanisms, serial coding and decoding of the transferred or received
data as well as transfer speed detection.

The Link layer takes the raw data from the physical layer and formats it into recognizable
1394 packets. It then has the task of getting the packets on and off the wire, error
detection and correction, retransmission (if required) as well as handling provision of
cycle control for isochronous channels and supplying an acknowledged datagram (a one
way data transfer with request confirmation) to the transaction layer.

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The Transaction layer finally takes the packets from the Link layer and presents them to
the application. It is this layer which implements the request-response protocol.

Bus Architecture and Arbitration

1934 supports two bus architectures

 Backplane bus
 Cable bus

The backplane bus supplements parallel bus structures by providing an alternate serial
communication path between devices plugged into the backplane.

The cable bus is a non-cyclic network with finite branches, consisting of bus bridges
branches. A bus bridge serves to connect buses of similar or different types.
 
When a node wishes to transmit a packet on the bus it needs to request permission to do
so. The procedure for determining which node gets control of the bus is known as
arbitration. There are two different kinds of arbitration depending on what kinds of
nodes are on the bus: arbitration with only asynchronous devices and arbitration with
isochronous devices. If isochronous devices are present, arbitration is handled the same
whether or not any asynchronous devices are present.
 
Asynchronous-only arbitration is based on fair scheduling with priorities. After a 20μs
gap (bus idle time) a new “arbitration round” starts. If a node wishes to transmit, it sends
an arbitration request, which propagates up to the root node. If multiple nodes request
arbitration at the same time, the node closest to the root node wins arbitration. If the
nodes requesting arbitration are the same distance from the root node, then the node
connecting to the lowest numbered root port wins arbitration. Each node can speak at
most once during a given arbitration round. After a 10μs gap the remaining nodes
arbitrate for their turn to use the bus; this continues until all nodes that wish to use the bus
during that round have used it. Following another 20μs gap a new round starts over.
 
The arbitration mechanism gets more complicated when isochronous devices are
connected on the bus, because those devices have already been guaranteed bandwidth.
Each arbitration round is approximately 125μs long, so bandwidth is allocated as a
portion of the 125μs interval. The root node broadcasts (sends a message to node 63, the
broadcast address) a cycle start packet, which begins the arbitration round. All interested
nodes send an arbitration request as before, and the winning node is still the node closest
to the root. After .04μs of bus idle time, the remaining nodes arbitrate for control of the
bus. Once each isochronous node has completed its transaction the time remaining in the
125μs interval is used for asynchronous transactions. Up to 80% of the bus bandwidth
may be allocated to isochronous transactions and the remaining 20% is left available for
asynchronous transactions. 1

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 1
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~ctindel/550/firewire.html

Data Transmission

IEEE 1394 interface supports both asynchronous and isochronous data transfer
techniques.

In the asynchronous transfer mode, data and class information is delivered to a specified
node with an explicit address. The asynchronous mode is useful for transmitting
information that does not need to operate in real-time, for instance, when transmissions
are going to printers or scanners.

 Asynchronous mode  
o Guaranteed data delivery

o Request and response

 Request

 Address

 Transaction type

 Data (if write)

 Response

 Status

 Data (if read)

o Reliability more important that timing

o Retries are acceptable to ensure successful data transfer
 Offers an acknowledged transmission of packets of variable size
o Not guaranteed a specific amount of bandwidth on the bus

Isochronous data transfers are always broadcast in a one-to-one or one-to-many fashion.

The isochronous mode is particularly effective for transmitting multimedia such as
audio/video data in instances when there are considerable time constraints.

 Isochronous mode
o Responsible for broadcasting transactions with variable size but
guaranteed timing constraints (125 µs intervals)

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 o Transmission within time limit more important than acknowledged
delivery
o Late data is useless
o No error correction or retransmission available
o Real time data streams between the device and the host at a guaranteed
rate
o Up to 80% of the available bus bandwidth can be used for this transfer
mode
 This delegation of bandwidth is tracked by a node on the bus and
need not necessarily be the computer.
 Isochronous channel ID’s are broadcast followed by the packet
data.
 The receiver monitors the incoming data’s channel ID and accepts
only data with the specified ID
o Request only
 Channel number
 Transaction type
 Data

A streaming device (such as speakers) uses the isochronous mode.

A crucial feature favoring FireWire is this isochronous data feature. If you have external
data drives plugged into the same hub as your printers, scanners and other peripherals,
you could have unforeseen trouble. It is possible to lose data when writing to external
drives while printing. Although USB supports up to 127 devices daisychained together,
FireWire, allowing only 63, allows your peripherals to multitask without risk of data loss,
providing extremely useful for applications where multiple devices running at different
speeds needs to co-exist.

Within the 1394 bus, each node acts as a repeater between nodes and simulates a
logically joined bus. This is consequently known as having a peer-to-peer interface as
opposed to a host-based network (as in the case of USB). This has the benefits of
allowing two devices to communicate directly without having to relay the data through a
host system (computer). As an example, a VCR can act as a FireWire controller for
camcorders, TV sets, receiver/amplifiers, and other home theater components. It also
allows multiple computers to share a given peripheral without any special support in the
peripheral or the computers.

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 Connection Medium

Interconnections are usually constructed with a 6-conductor cable that contains two
separately shielded "twisted" pairs for transmitting data, plus two power conductors and
an overall external shield. The two twisted pairs create a transmit/receive connection with
each twisted pair link half-duplex, allowing data to be transmitted in only one direction at
the time. The power wires operate from 8-40VDC with up to 1.5Amps per link allowed.
This current keeps remote devices "alive" even when they're powered down. As opposed
to USB power that is ample only for a mouse or a keyboard, Firewire power is able to
supply enough power to recharge the battery on a portable device

The image below shows a cross section of the abovementioned cable. According to the
standards AWB 22 This cable is typically 6mm in diameter.

Figure 3.
Standard Cable specifications

A limitation however is the maximum length of cable. Operating at S400, 1394 cables are
limited to 4.5 meters (14 feet) between devices before signal distortion begins to occur.
Up to a maximum of 16 hops are allowed thus allowing a total distance of 72metres. The
use of 1394 to implement home networks will require cable hops likely to exceed 10
meters. Restricting the speed of the bus to S200 enables an increase in the distance
between nodes to about 14 meters.

Longer cable runs can be achieved by using thicker cable or by lowering the bit rate.
Manufacturers will also offer repeater boxes that will extend the cable length an
additional 4 meters. Multiple repeaters can be used for increased distances. Other

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developments include POF or Plastic Optical Fiber which will allow cable lengths of 50
meters and HPCF or Hard Polymer Clad Silica Optical Fiber which should allow cable
lengths of 100 meters

Features

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-928089.html

Figure 4.
Comparison of available port speeds

 Automatic configuration of devices (plug and play)

 Hot pluggable, allowing devices to be connected and disconnected at any time
even with the power on. These hot plugging capabilities of 1394 make it ideal as a
consumer interface, allowing a large amount of flexibility for users to daisy chain
nodes together ad lib.
 Flexibility Capabilities
o Supports various speeds on the same bus without any of the devices on
that bus suffering from performance penalties.
o Ability to multiplex a variety of different types of digital signals, including
video, audio, MIDI and device control commands, on the two twisted-pair
conductors
 Multiplexing is used in virtually all analog and digital networking
systems, but usually only a single type of signal is involved. This
multiplexing of multiple signals is thus unique to 1394.
 Can be connected in multiple configurations
o Daisy Chain
o Tree
o Star
o Combination of the above
 Device terminators are not required
 Addressing is done dynamically
o There is no need for address pre-assignment.
 Allows up to 63 devices per bus
 Allows up to 1,023 buses can be bridged together

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 Uses a "fairness" arbitration approach to assure that all devices that have
information to transmit get a chance to use the bus
 Protocols also include device-specific commands to start and stop camcorders,
VCRs and other tasks.
 Guaranteed bandwidth for audio/video stream
 Provides power through cable
 Low implementation cost

Applications

 Digital Camcorders and VCR’s

 Digital Tv’s
 Set top boxes
 Video Games
 Home Theatre
 Home networks
 Printers
 Pc to PC networking and Pc peripheral component sharing
 Scanners
 Dat Recorders
 Video Conferencing
 Digital still cameras
 Professional audio video equipment
 Fixed and removable Pc disk drives

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 1394 Vs. 1394b

The 1394 standard defines three signaling rates which, in precise terms, are: 98.304,
196.608 and 393.216 Mbits/s (megabits per second). These rates are referred to as S100,
S200 and S400 respectively. These rates are more than adequate to support simultaneous
channels of 30fps broadcast quality video along with stereo audio.

Data Type  Sample Size and Rate  Required Bit rate

      
ISDN  8Khz x 8bits  64 Kbit/s
AUDIO CD  44.1Khz x 16 bits x 2 channels  1.4 Mbit/s
DAT  48Khz x 16bits x 2 channels  1.5 Mbit/s
VIDEO  25-30 frames/sec  1.5 – 216 Mbit/s
Figure 5.
Comparative table of required bit rates

The 1394b (beta) specification expands the standard to include speeds of 800 (due for
release end 2002) 1,600 and 3,200Mbits/s (its theoretical ceiling). 1394b also allows for
longer distances to be traversed, with 100m hops being acceptable vs. its predecessors
4.5m hops. In order to promote these increased distances, the new media discussed in
“Connecting Medium” will need to be utilized. These include plastic optical fiber POF
and Multimode glass fiber for high speeds. 1394b is fully backward compatible allowing
it to be incorporated within an existing alpha technology network. There are consequently
now three modes of operation: alpha mode, beta mode (only new devices are connected)
and bilingual mode (a mixture of new and old devices connect to the bus). In bilingual
mode, the bus negotiates with the peer for the best mode of operation. These new higher
speeds are still compatible with lower speeds. For instance, if a 1394 interface cable is
connected to a 400Mbps computer, a 200Mbps printer, and a 100Mbps optical disk, all of
the three devices will be inter-operable, as they will simply adjust their own operation
speeds while exchanging data among themselves.

The IEEE-1394b is thus an innovation that would allow surveillance systems to inter-
operate with a wide range of multimedia peripherals including scanners, digital cameras
and digital video cameras.

The most important characteristics of Firewire alpha will remain in the beta release, peer-
to-peer connection model, logical bus model, and asynchronous and isochronous
transmission. FireWire beta is a superior serial bus because it continually transmits data
in one direction. The bus is continuous dual simplex. This implies the speed never varies,

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which is of course of crucial importance to for example streaming video. Beta mode is
also simpler and more efficient than alpha is, reducing latency times by using arbitration
pipelining.

References

Anderson, Don. FireWire System Architecture. Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1998

http://www.computeruser.com/articles/1905,5,18,1,0501,00.html
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http://www.firewirestuff.com/whatis.html
http://www.hardwaresite.net/firewire.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/firewire.htm
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http://www.xilinx.com/esp/dvt/collateral/1394_dvt.pdf
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~ctindel/550/firewire.html

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