FireWire to IDE bridge chip supports RAID

Firmware enhancements to the popular OXFW911 FireWire to IDE bridge chip enable the development of simple, low cost RAID storage products for personal and small business application.

Providing a high speed interface between an IEEE 1394 port and a pair of ATA / ATAPI disk drives, the ARM-backed comms IC from Oxford Semiconductor can now be used to create a RAID Level 1 - disk mirroring - product to suit even the smallest PC installation.

In plugging into a dual drive combination via the OXFW911, a PC sees only one storage device attached. Translating the commands passed between the PC FireWire port and IDE disk drives, the bridge IC automatically duplicates data read and write operations on the two separate disk drives.

Assuring a sustained data transfer rate on read of up to 45MB/s, the OXFW911 device and a PHY, offers a two-chip, single firmware interface between ATA and 1394 ports. The high-speed performance overcomes any potential bottleneck associated with ATA/1394 interfacing.

Featuring an integrated serial bus protocol (SBP-2) target controller, the FireWire to IDE interface chip is simple to design-in, being supported by generic drivers of all the common operating systems. A full suite of design support tools and development board is also available for the chip.