Chapter 7. High-Speed Serial Technologies
In this chapter…
The computer industry has been promising users the ability to easily connect electronics devices such as digital TVs, cameras, cable set-top boxes, and stereo equipment to each other and to PCs for many years. USB and IEEE 1394 are the two solutions that have been developed to meet commitments to their customer base. While the two serial buses seem similar, they are intended to fulfill different bandwidth and cost needs. The 1394 standard can move more data in a given amount of time, but is more expensive than USB due to its more complex protocol and signalling rate. Applications that are best suited for 1394 are disk drives, high-quality video streams, and other high-bandwidth applications—all higher-end consumer devices. USB is appropriate for mid- and low-bandwidth applications such as audio, scanners, printers, keyboards, and mouses. USB and 1394 are complementary technologies. 1394 is for devices where high performance is a priority and price is not, while USB is for devices where price is a priority and high performance is not. This chapter examines these technologies in more detail.