Monday, December 11th, 2000

Initio Announces 1394 Link Controller for UDMA 66 and ATAPI Peripherals

Initio Corporation, makers of input/output (I/O) solutions for computers and peripherals, have announced their INIC-1420, the company’s first fully functional link controller to provide a FireWire interface to UDMA 66 and ATAPI peripherals. The single-chip controller will be available for OEM companies to use in manufacturing disk, tape, CDRW and DVD drives.

The INIC-1420 full firmware support, one of the first on the market to do so, support that will enable OEM companies achieve quicker time to market for FireWire-interface drives. It is the successor to Initio’s INIC-1410 device, which is already shipping to leading companies.

The INIC-1420 integrates a 1394 core with the UDMA 66 and ATAPI interfaces on a single chip. The Serial Bus Protocol-2 (SBP-2)-compliant firmware is stored in an external Flash ROM, independent of the host operating system.

The INIC-1420 provides the connection between established drive designs and a FireWire interface. The device allows peripherals to communicate directly with each other without burdening the host unit, permits scalable networks supporting multiple speeds and enables true plug-and-play solutions.

It includes 1394a cycle master performance, asynchronous transfers at all the speeds of FireWire and seamless integration of a variety of drive types including CD-ROM and CDR-W, DVD products, magneto-optical and hard disk drives.