Introduction to Input/Output Ports

USB and IEEE 1394 (i.LINK or

FireWire)
The two most popular high-speed serial-bus architecture families
for desktop and portable PCs are
• Universal Serial Bus (USB)
• IEEE 1394, which is also called i.LINK or FireWire.
• Each interface type is available in two versions:
o USB 1.1 and USB 2.0;
o IEEE 1394a and IEEE 1394b (also called FireWire 800).
• The USB and IEEE 1394 port families are high-speed
communications ports that far outstrip the capabilities of older
standard serial and parallel ports.
• They can also be used as an alternative to SCSI for high-speed
external peripheral connections.
• In addition to performance, these newer ports offer I/O device
consolidation, which means that all types of external peripherals
can connect to these ports
 WHY SERIAL?
The recent trend in high-performance peripheral
bus design is to use a serial architecture, in which
1 bit at a time is sent down a wire.
• Because parallel architecture (used by SCSI, ATA,
and LPT ports) uses 8, 16, or more wires to send
bits simultaneously, the parallel bus is actually
much faster at the same clock speed. However,
increasing the clock speed of a serial connection
is much easier than increasing that of a parallel
connection.
 PROBLEM OF PARALLEL TRANSFER
Parallel connections in general suffer from several problems, the biggest
being signal skew and jitter.
• Skew and jitter are the reasons high-speed parallel buses such as SCSI are
limited to short distances of 3 meters or less.
• The problem is that, although the 8 or 16 bits of data are fired from the
transmitter at the same time, by the time they reach the receiver,
propagation delays have conspired to allow some bits to arrive before the
others.
The longer the cable, the longer the time between the arrival of the first
and last bits at the other end! This signal skew, as it is called, prevents
you from running a high-speed transfer rate or a longer cable—or both.
• Jitter is the tendency for the signal to reach its target voltage and float
above and below for a short period of time.
• With a serial bus, the data is sent 1 bit at a time. Because there is no
worry about when each bit will
 ADVANTAGES OF SERIAL

• With a serial bus, the data is sent 1 bit at a time. Because there is no
worry about when each bit will arrive, the clocking rate can be increased
dramatically.
• For example, the top transfer rate possible with EPP/ECP parallel ports is
2.77MBps, whereas IEEE 1394a ports (which use high-speed serial
technology) support transfer rates as high as 400Mbps (about 50MBps)—
25 times faster than parallel ports.
• USB 2.0 supports transfer rates of 480Mbps (about 60MBps), which is
about 30 times faster than parallel ports, and the new IEEE 1394b
(FireWire 800) ports reach transfer rates as high as 800Mbps (or
about 100MBps), which is about 50 times faster than parallel ports!
• At high clock rates, parallel signals tend to interfere with each other. Serial
again has an advantage because, with only one or two signal wires,
crosstalk and interference between the wires in the cable are negligible.
 SERIAL VS PARALLEL CABLING
• Parallel cabling is more expensive than serial cabling. Besides the
many additional wires needed to carry the multiple bits in parallel,
the cable also must be specially constructed to prevent crosstalk
and interference between adjacent data lines.
• This is one reason external SCSI cables are so expensive.
• Serial cabling, by comparison, is very inexpensive. For one thing, it
has significantly fewer wires.
• Furthermore, the shielding requirements are far simpler, even at
very high speeds. Because of this, transmitting serial data reliably
over longer distances is also easier, which is why parallel interfaces
have shorter recommended cable lengths than do serial interfaces.
• For these reasons—in addition to the need for new Plug and Play
external peripheral interfaces and the elimination of the physical
port crowding on portable computers—these high-performance
serial buses were developed. USB AND FIREWIRE
• USB is a standard feature on virtually all PCs
today; is used for most general purpose, high-
speed external interfacing; and is the most
compatible, widely available, and fastest general-
purpose external interface.
• In addition, IEEE 1394 (more commonly known
as FireWire), although mainly used in certain
niche markets—such as connecting DV (digital
video) camcorders—is also spreading into other
high-bandwidth uses, such as high-resolution
scanners, external hard drives, and networking.
 Universal Serial Bus (USB
• (USB) is an external peripheral bus standard designed to bring Plug
and Play capability for attaching peripherals externally to the PC.
• USB eliminates the need for special-purpose ports, reduces the
need to use special-purpose I/O cards (thus reducing the need to
reconfigure the system with each new device added), and saves
important system resources such as interrupts (IRQs);
• regardless of the number of devices attached to a system’s USB
ports, only one IRQ is required.
• PCs equipped with USB enable peripherals to be automatically
recognized and configured as soon as they are physically attached,
without the need to reboot or run setup. (HOT SWAPPING)
• USB allows up to 127 devices to run simultaneously on a single
bus, with peripherals such as monitors and keyboards acting as
additional plug-in sites, or hubs..
Note the “plus” symbol added to the upper icon, which indicates that port
supports USB 2.0 (Hi-Speed USB) in addition to the standard 1.x support.
 HISTORY
• Intel has been the primary proponent of USB, and all
its PC chipsets starting with the PIIX3 South Bridge
chipset component (introduced in February 1996) have
included USB support as standard.
• Six other companies initially worked with Intel in
codeveloping the USB, including Compaq, Digital,IBM,
Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom.
• Together, these companies have established the USB
Implementers Forum (USB-IF) to develop, support, and
promote USB architecture
• The USB-IF formally released USB 1.0 in January 1996, USB 1.1 in September 1998,
and USB 2.0 in April 2000.
• The 1.1 revision was mostly a clarification of some issues related to hubs and
other areas of the specification. Most devices and hubs should be 1.1 compliant,
even if they were manufactured before the release of the 1.1 specification.
• The biggest change was USB 2.0, which is 40 times faster than the original USB and
yet fully backward compatible.
• USB ports can be retrofitted to older computers that lack built-in USB connectors
through the use of either an add-on PCI card (for desktop computers) or a PC Card
on Cardbus-compatible notebook computers.
• You can also use USB add-on cards to update an older system that has only USB
1.1 on the motherboard.
• As of mid-2002, virtually all motherboards include four or more USB 2.0 ports as
standard.
• Notebook computers were slower to catch on—it wasn’t until early 2003 that
most notebook or laptop computers included USB 2.0 ports as standard.
 USB Technical Details

• USB 1.1 runs at 12Mbps (1.5MBps) over a simple four-wire connection.

• The bus supports up to 127 devices connected to a single root hub and
uses a tiered-star topology, built on expansion hubs that can reside in the
PC, any USB peripheral, or even standalone hub boxes.
• Note that although the standard allows up to 127 devices to be attached,
they all must share the 1.5MBps bandwidth, meaning that for every active
device you add, the bus will slow down some.
• In practical reality, few people will have more than 8 devices attached at
any one time.
• For low-speed peripherals, such as pointing devices and keyboards, the
USB also has a slower 1.5Mbps subchannel. The subchannel connection is
used for slower interface devices, such as keyboards and mice.
• USB employs what is called Non Return to Zero Invert (NRZI) data
encoding.
• NRZI is a method of encoding serial data in which 1s and 0s are
represented by opposite and alternating high and low voltages
where there is no return to a zero (or reference) voltage between
the encoded bits.
• In NRZI encoding, a 1 is represented by no change in signal level,
and a 0 is represented by a change in level.
• A string of 0s causes the NRZI data to toggle each bit time; a string
of 1s causes long periods with no transitions in the data.
• This is an efficient transfer encoding scheme because it eliminates
the need for additional clock pulses that would otherwise waste
time and bandwidth
 USB DEVICES
• USB devices are considered either hubs or functions, or both.
• Functions are the individual devices that attach to the USB, such as a
keyboard, mouse, camera, printer, telephone, and so on.
• Hubs provide additional attachment points to the USB, enabling the
attachment of more hubs or functions.
• The initial ports in the PC system unit are called the root hub, and they
are the starting point for the USB. Most motherboards have two, three, or
four USB ports, any of which can be connected to functions or additional
hubs.
• Some systems place one or two of the USB ports in the front of the
computer, which is very convenient for devices you use only occasionally,
such as digital cameras or flash memory card readers.
• External hubs (also called generic hubs) are essentially
wiring concentrators, and through a star-type topology
they allow the attachment of multiple devices.
• Each attachment point is referred to as a port.
• Most hubs have either four or eight ports, but more
are possible. For more expandability, you can connect
• additional hubs to the ports on an existing hub. The
hub controls both the connection and distribution
• of power to each of the connected functions.
 USB CONNECTORS
• Four main styles of connectors are specified for USB, called Series A, Series B,
Mini-A, and Mini-B connectors.
• The A connectors are used for upstream connections between a device and
the host or a hub. The USB ports on motherboards and hubs are usually
Series A connectors.
• Series B connectors are designed for the downstream connection to a device
that has detachable cables.
• In all cases, the miniconnectors are simply smaller versions of the larger ones,
in a physically smaller form factor for smaller devices.
• The physical USB plugs are small (especially the mini plugs) and, unlike a
typical serial or parallel cable, the plug is not attached by screws or
thumbscrews.
• There are no pins to bend or break, making USB devices very user friendly to
install and remove..
COLOR CODING FOR USB MINI PLUG
• USB conforms to Intel’s Plug and Play (PnP)
specification, including hot plugging, which means that
• devices can be plugged in dynamically without
powering down or rebooting the system. Simply plug
• in the device, and the USB controller in the PC detects
the device and automatically determines and
• allocates the required resources and drivers. Microsoft
has developed USB drivers and included them
• automatically in Windows 98 and later.
• USB Data Rates
 IEEE 1394
FIREWIRE OR i.LINK
• The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Standards Board introduced IEEE 1394 (or just 1394 for
• short) in late 1995.
• The number comes from the fact that this happened to
be the 1,394th standard they published.
• It is the result of the large data-moving demands of
today’s audio and video multimedia devices.
• The key advantage of 1394 is that it’s extremely fast;
the popular 1394a standard supports data transfer
rates up to an incredible 400Mbps.
 1394 Standards

• The most common version of the 1394 standard is actually referred to as

1394a, or sometimes as 1394a-2000 for the year it was adopted. The
1394a standard was introduced to solve interoperability and compatibility
issues in the original 1394 standard; it uses the same connectors and
supports the same speeds as the original 1394 standard.
• The first products to use the 1394b standard were introduced in early
2003. Initially, 1394b supports 800Mbps transfer rates, but future
versions of the standard might reach speeds of up to 3,200Mbps.
• 1394b will be capable of reaching much higher speeds than the current
1394/1394a standard because it will also support network technologies
such as glass and plastic fiber-optic cable and Category 5 UTP cable,
increased distances when Category 5 cabling is used between devices, and
improvements in signaling.
• 1394b will also be fully backward-compatible with 1394a devices. 1394 is
also known by two other common names: i.LINK and FireWire. i.LINK is an
IEEE 1394 designation initiated by Sony in an effort to put a more user-
friendly name on IEEE 1394 technology
• Most companies that produce 1394 products for PCs have endorsed this
new name initiative.
• Originally, the term FireWire was an Applespecific trademark that Apple
licensed to vendors on a fee basis. However, in May 2002, Apple and the
• 1394 Trade Association announced an agreement to allow the trade
association to provide no-fee licenses for the FireWire trademark on 1394-
compliant products that pass the trade association’s tests.
• Apple continues to use FireWire as its marketing term for IEEE 1394 devices.
FireWire 400 refers to Apple’s IEEE 1394a–compliant products, whereas
FireWire 800 refers to Apple’s IEEE 1394b–compliant products.
 1394a Technical Details

• The IEEE 1394a standard currently exists with three signaling rates—
100Mbps, 200Mbps, and 400Mbps (12.5MBps, 25MBps, and 50MBps). Most
PC adapter cards support the 400Mbps (50MBps) rate, although device
speeds can vary.
• A maximum of 63 devices can be connected to a single IEEE 1394 adapter
card by way of daisy-chaining or branching.
• 1394 devices, unlike USB devices, can be used in a daisy-chain without using
a hub, although hubs are recommended for devices that will be
• hot-swapped.
• Cables for IEEE 1394/1394a devices use Nintendo GameBoy–derived
connectors and consist of six conductors: Four wires transmit data, and two
wires conduct power.
• Connection with the motherboard is made either by a dedicated IEEE 1394
interface or by a PCI adapter card.
• The 1394 bus was derived from the FireWire bus originally developed by
Apple and Texas Instruments, and it is also a part of a new Serial SCSI
standard.
• 1394a uses a simple six-wire cable with two differential pairs of clock and
data lines, plus two power lines; the four-wire cable end shown in Figure
is used with self-powered devices, such as DV camcorders.
• Just as with USB, 1394 is fully PnP, including the capability for hot-
plugging (insertion and removal of components without powering down).
• Unlike the much more complicated parallel SCSI bus, 1394 does not
require complicated termination, and devices connected to the bus can
draw up to 1.5 amps of electrical power.
• 1394 offers equal or greater performance compared to ultra-wide SCSI,
with a much less expensive and less complicated connection.
• 1394 is built on a daisy-chained and branched topology, and it allows up
to 63 nodes, with a chain of up to 16 devices on each node.
• If this is not enough, the standard also calls for up to 1,023 bridged buses,
which can interconnect more than 64,000 nodes! Additionally, as with
SCSI, 1394 can support devices with various data rates on the same bus.
Most 1394 adapters have three nodes, each of which can support 16
devices in a daisy-chain arrangement.
• Some 1394 adapters also support internal 1394 devices.
 DEVICES
• The types of devices that can be connected to the PC
via 1394 mainly include
• video cameras; editing equipment;
• and all forms of disk drives, including hard disk, optical,
floppy, CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM
• drives. Also, digital cameras, tape drives, high-
resolution scanners, and many other high-speed
peripherals
• that feature 1394 have interfaces built in. The 1394
bus appears in some desktop and portable
• computers as a replacement or supplement for other
external high-speed buses, such as USB or SCSI
 IEEE 1394b Technical Details

• IEEE 1394b is the second generation of the 1394

standard, with the first products (high-performance
external hard drives) introduced in January 2003.
• IEEE 1394b uses one of two new nine-pin cables
and connectors to support speeds of 800Mbps–
3200Mbps with copper or fiber-optic cabling.
In addition
• to supporting faster transfer rates, 1394b has other
new features, including
• ■
• Self-healing loops. If you improperly connect 1394b devices
together to create a logical loop, the interface corrects the
problem instead of failing as with 1394a.
• Continuous dual simplex. Of the two wire pairs used, each
pair transmits data to the other device, so that speed
remains constant.
• Support for fiber-optic and CAT5 network cable as well as
standard 1394a and 1394b copper cable.
• Improved arbitration of signals to support faster
performance and longer cable distances.
• Support for CAT5 cable, even though it uses pairs on pins 1
and 2 and 7 and 8 only for greater reliability.
• It also doesn’t require crossover cables.
• The initial implementations of IEEE 1394b use a new nine-wire
interface with two pairs of signaling wires. However, to enable a
1394b port to connect to 1394a-compatible devices, there are two
different
• versions of the 1394b port:
■ Beta
■ Bilingual
• Beta connectors support only 1394b devices, whereas bilingual
connectors can support both 1394b and 1394a devices.
• Note that bilingual sockets and cables have a narrower notch than
beta sockets and cables. This prevents cables designed for 1394a
devices from being connected to the beta socket.
types of connectors
A beta-to-beta cable (top) compared to bilingual–to–4-pin (middle) and
bilingual–to–6-pin 1394a devices (bottom).
1. No with USB On-The-Go.
2. CAT-5 UTP supported for 100Mbps speeds (100 meters max.); step-index plastic optical
fiber supported for 100Mbps and 200Mbps speeds (50 meters max.).