TI establishes a new LINK

Texas Instruments Inc. has announced a new link layer chip, the TSB12LV23, for the IEEE 1394 (Firewire) interface, which it says is 30 percent less costly and requires 83 percent less power than the company's previous LINK chip.

The new chip is housed in a 100-pin thin quad flat pack that interfaces to PCI or Cardbus and draws about 30 mA of current. The chip also contains a previously-unavailable 3-kByte asynchronous transmit FIFO, which allows for dynamic buffer allocation.

The new chip will be available in volume in the second half of 1999. It will sell as part of a chip set (with the TSB41LV02 PHY chip) for under $10 each in high volumes. More information about Texas Instruments can be found at www.ti.com .