Forum: Cause & Effect - Cui Bono* IEEE 1394?
(*Latin — To whom is it good)

Both USB and 1394 have been slow to gain momentum in the marketplace. The dam has broken for USB products, while 1394 product vendors are still waiting for the Big Bang.

by John Canosa
Like Romulus and Remus, USB and IEEE 1394 have been the serial bus twins, always compared and contrasted in people’s minds. Vendors of products using these buses have been waiting impatiently for the rewards promised by their progenitors. Both buses have been slow to gain momentum in the marketplace. However, in the past few months, the dam has broken for USB products, while 1394 product vendors are still waiting for the Big Bang.

According to Dataquest, the market for USB products grew from 0.5M units in 1997 to 10M units in 1998 with an estimated 50M units this year. For vendors of 1394 products waiting for their own dam to break, it is instructive to look at the compelling events that caused USB to take off in the marketplace.

USB was a case of the hardware waiting for the software. USB silicon support has been shipping in Intel’s PC chipsets for a few years, but the market for peripherals was still nonexistent. The release of Windows 98 and the introduction of Apple’s iMac finally created the market that vendors had been expecting. Because of USB’s reliance on a central host computer, these two events are all that was needed to make a difference.

The situation for 1394 is more complex. Because IEEE 1394 is a peer-to-peer bus, it has generated a tremendous amount of interest in several vertical markets that make use of multimedia, including consumer electronics, computers, and networking. The compelling events for 1394 have not yet happened, and may come from surprising places.

From a computer standpoint, the 1394 market is the opposite case of USB — the software is waiting for the hardware. Windows 98 has limited support for 1394, but adding hardware support involves purchasing a separate plug-in card. Intel seems to be playing the chicken and the egg game, delaying incorporation of 1394 because of its slow acceptance, but also being a significant deterrent to the emergence of the market because of the lack of integrated 1394 support. An interesting development in the 1394 arena is the recent introduction of next-generation PC card controllers from NEC and Texas Instruments with integrated 1394 support. This could be a compelling event for laptop manufacturers, enabling them to drive 1394 into the computer marketplace.

In the consumer market, 1394-enabled devices have been around for some time, but the market certainly has not exploded. There are a couple of potentially compelling events here, including computer support and, perhaps the biggest roadblock, copy protection. Digital video cameras with 1394 support have been around for a couple of years. However, there remain precious few products that accept that digital information over 1394. DVD-RAM and stand-alone, low-cost hard drives are logical candidates, but until an agreement over the two competing copy protection schemes is reached, this situation may be at a standstill.

One often overlooked wildcard in the 1394 landscape is networking. When the 1394b specification is finalized, it will be possible to transmit both asynchronous (TCP/IP) and isochronous data over standard Category 5 twisted pair at rates up to 1,600MB/s. Cabling is often the most expensive part of any physical plant, and replacing Ethernet switches and routers with 1394 bus bridges may be all that is necessary to bring true multimedia to the desktop. Of course, the compelling events here are the finalizing of the 1394b specification, the appearance of suitably priced bridges, and system administrators’ acceptance that 1394 is a real alternative to 100BaseT and 1000BaseT.

The attractiveness of 1394 across several different markets is both a blessing and a curse. The alphabet soup of often competing standards riding on top of 1394 is staggering. If the goal is for consumers to replace their RCA jacks and cables with 1394 cables, the potential confusion caused by this could be a serious problem.

IEEE 1394 will eventually be a dominant force in the connectivity marketplace; it just may take a little longer than people would prefer. However, their patience will be rewarded. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

John Canosa is a principal member of the technical staff at Questra Consulting, a firm specializing in software and hardware design services for high-performance embedded systems.