MAY 17--Leaders of the 1394 Trade Association (www.1394ta.org)--an international organization dedicated to the advancement and proliferation of the IEEE 1394/FireWire multimedia standard--have said that the introduction of a new 1394-equipped chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS; Taiwan, China; www.sis.com) represents a breakthrough in 1394/FireWire technology that will encourage the use of the 1394 multimedia standard in computer and peripheral applications. In March, SiS unveiled the industry's first chipsets with integrated 1394 host controller--the SiS745.
In an effort to promote the adoption of the 1394 infrastructure in the PC platform, SiS has integrated the 1394 controller, in current products as well as future solutions. The SiS745 is an open architecture single chip supporting the AMD Athlon XP. This contrasts with competitive solutions that adopt independent north bridge and south bridge. The SiS745 is now in production. By integrating the state-of-the-art 1394 technology, the SiS745 provides a high-performance 1394 host platform to the market that could significantly propel the application and adoption of 1394 in PCs, consumer electrical appliances, and in-home networking scenarios.
"The integration of the 1394/FireWire standard into the chipsets is a significant development which advances the proliferation of 1394 across multiple product lines at leading PC makers," said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association. "We anticipate that other chipset manufacturers will follow the lead of SiS, which is an innovative leader in the industry. This is a vital market and an important development for the FireWire standard."
The built-in 1394 host controller in SiS745 conforms to IEEE 1394-1995 and 1394a designation for a high-performance serial bus. It is OHCI 1.0 and OHCI 1.1 compliant and supports transfer rates of 100, 200, and 400 Mbit/s. In addition, it is compatible with PCI 2.2 and PCI power-management v.1.2 specification, and it has Windows ME and XP Logo from Microsoft.
