Taiwan Embraces FireWire

Looking for more bandwidth between your computer and your digital camcorder? If Taiwanese computer product manufacturers have their way, most computers will have a FireWire or iLINK bus in the near future. The 1394 Trade Association reports that these manufacturers are installing the IEEE 1394 multimedia bus into gads of interface cards and motherboards in anticipation of your multimedia needs. Texas Instruments and Agere say they are seeing a ramp up of 1394 IC shipments into Taiwan as companies such as Procomp, Asustek and Gigabyte Technology include the bus on their cards and boards. Currently more than 40%of all notebook and handheld PCs include a 1394 multimedia bus. About 66 percent of the installed base for IEEE 1394 are desktop systems, 27 percent are notebooks, 6 percent are workstations, and 4 percent are retail PCI add-in cards. For more info about the IEEE 1394 multimedia standard visit the trade association website.