"...Matsushita Electric Industrial and its semiconductor subsidiary Matsushita Electronics Corporation, today jointly announced development of an advanced IEEE 1394 interface LSI that for the first time integrates circuitry for both the IEEE 1394 physical layer and a bridge between IEEE 1394 and ATAPI data buses. Sample shipment of the new LSI will begin in late March 2001.

Two high-speed physical layer ports each offer IEEE 1394a-compliant data transfer rates of 100 to 400 Mbps, utilizing a CMOS 0.25¦Ìm process that builds in the physical layer through a unique high-speed analog/digital on-chip technology, newly developed by Matsushita for this LSI. This is expected to enable faster and smoother conversion between the ATAPI interface in optical disk drives such as DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM to the more advanced IEEE 1394, thereby accelerating the development of a wide range of advanced external optical disk drive products for personal computers.

This LSI supports signaling and timing for a variety of ATAPI transfer modes, such as Ultra DMA mode 0-4, PIO (programmed input/output) mode 0-4, and Multiword DMA. This ATAPI interface support with DMA will enable optical disk drive products and other PC peripherals such as digital cameras, scanners and printers, to operate at a maximum data transfer rate of 50 Mbps. This new IEEE 1394 interface LSI chip is designed specifically to enable high-performance external devices that are easier to use as well as less expensive..." NULL