FireBoard 400™ 1394a PCI Lynx-2 adapter technical specifications

FireWire PCI Host Adapter Board

Unibrain’s FireBoard 400™ Host Adapter brings high-performance FireWire technology to PCI systems. Based on the Texas Instruments TSB41AB3 FireWire triple-cable transceiver/arbiter and the TSB12LV21B (PCILynx) FireWire bus to PCI bus, the FireBoard 400™ is fully compliant with the FireWire Specification and PCI 2.1. The board can connect a maximum of 63 devices and supports speeds up to 400 Mbps.

FEATURES

Physical Layer

Supports Provisions of FireWire Standard for High Performance Serial Bus
Provides Three Fully Compliant Cable Ports at 100/200/400 Mbits/sec
Cable Ports Monitor Line Conditions for Active Connection to Remote Node
25.576 MHz Crystal Oscillator and PLL Provide Transmit/Receive Data at 100/200/400 Mbits/sec and Link-Layer Controller Clock at 50 MHz
Node Power-Class Information Signaling for System Power Management
Cable Power Presence Monitoring.

Link Layer and PCI Interface

Supports Provisions of FireWire Standard for High-Performance Serial Bus
Performs the Function of a FireWire Cycle Master
Supports FireWire Transfer Rates of 100, 200 and 400 Mbit/sec
Provides Three Sizes of Programmable FIFOs
Provides PCI Bus Master Function for Supporting DMA Operations
Compliant With PCI Specification 2.1
Provides PCI Slave Function for Read/Write
Access of Internal Registers
Supports the plug’n play (PnP) Specification
Operates from a 3.3-V Power Supply While Maintaining 5-V Tolerant Inputs
Extension Headers for the Local Bus
Autoboot mode capability that allows data-moving systems to be designed to operate on the PCI bus without the need for a host CPU.

Extension Capabilities

FireBoard 400™ can be extended in functionality and operability. This can be achieved combining the Autoboot mode capability and the Extension Headers of the Local Bus. You can design your custom system based on the PCILynx local bus as a biggy-back board attached to the FireBoard 400™.

Configuration Serial EEPROM

Low Power Dissipation Circuitry

External Power Supply

The FireBoard 400™ has an optional power connector in order to receive the cable power not only from the +12V of the PCI connector but also from an external power connector provided by the host PC power supply.

The FireWire connectors provide cable power voltage of +12V and ~400 mA for the 3 FireWire ports. So it is implied that if there is connected only one FireWire device then it can absorb max ~400mA, while if there are 3 FireWire devices connected in the 3 ports of our FireBoard then each device can absorb approximately ~400/3 mA. More specifically for the FireBoard 400™ that takes +12V from the power supply, there is a significant augmentation on current.

In this case the total current is around 1,5-2A depending on the power supply size. So in case of 3 devices attached to our board then the max current for each device is approximately 1,5/3 A.

Design Issues

Logic Design

The entire design of Unibrain’s FireBoard 400™ is based on the two main FireWire chip-sets of Texas Instruments:

the TSB41AB3 IEEE-1394 triple-cable transceiver/arbiter and
the TSB12LV21B (PCILynx) IEEE-1394 bus to PCI bus

PCB Design

The FireBoard 400™ card is a four-layer printed circuit PCI board. Two of the layers provide the signal interconnections (signal layers) while the remaining two layers provide the required power and ground interconnections (plane layers).

Operating Voltage

12V DC - CAUTION: additional power supply voltage on the Firewire bus should be equal to 12V

Operating Free-air Temperature

0°C to 45°C

Humidity

10% to 90% non condensing.

EMI, EMC testing

FireBoard 400™ has successfully passed the EN 55022 (Emissions Environment) and EN 55024 (Immunity Environment) EMI test procedures. Subsequently, this product is fully CE compliant and assigned with the CE mark.

R : Required, T : Tested

R	T	Test Description	Standard
X	X	Conducted emissions	EN 55022
X	X	Radiated emissions	EN 55022
X	X	Electrostatic discharges	EN 61000-4-2
X	X	Radiated E.M. fields	EN 61000-4-3
X	X	Fast transient burst (EFT)	EN 61000-4-4

Voltage and Current requirements

The FireBoard 400™ is a PCI board plugged into a standard 5V/32-bit PCI socket and has the following voltage and current requirements:

+12V @ 0,5A (max)
+5V @ 0,5A (max)

Expansion Headers on the new FireBoard 400™

The new FireBoard 400™ has two expansion headers that provide the full local bus of the TI’s PCILynx2 chip (TSB12LV21B). This is very useful for developers that require extended functionality of this PCIlynx2 chip. In order to use the expansion headers, the developer must prepare his custom add-on board that will include the required specific digital logic.

The pin assignment for each of the headers in described in the following tables:

	CN1
PIN	Net Name
1	V_DATAVALID
2	ZV_HSYNC
3	ZV_EXT_CLK
4	ZV_VSYNC
5	ZV_PIX_CLK
6	GND
7	GPIO0_CONTEND
8	GPIO1
9	GPIO_DATA2
10	GPIO_DATA3
11	AUX_ADR0
12	AUX_ADR1
13	AUX_ADR2
14	AUX_ADR3
15	AUX_ADR4
16	AUX_ADR5
17	AUX_ADR6
18	GND
19	AUX_ADR8
20	AUX_ADR7
21	AUX_ADR10
22	AUX_ADR9
23	AUX_ADR12
24	AUX_ADR11
25	AUX_ADR14
26	AUX_ADR13
27	AUX_ADR15
28	GND
29	AUX_DATA0
30	AUX_DATA1
31	AUX_DATA2
32	AUX_DATA3
33	AUX_DATA4
34	AUX_DATA5

	CN2
PIN	Net Name
1	AUX_DATA6
2	AUX_DATA7
3	AUX_DATA8
4	AUX_DATA9
5	AUX_DATA10
6	GND
7	AUX_DATA12
8	AUX_DATA11
9	AUX_DATA14
10	AUX_DATA13
11	AUX_OEZ
12	AUX_DATA15
13	AUX_WEZ1
14	AUX_WEZ0
15	ROM_CSZ
16	AUX_CSZ
17	AUX_RSTZ
18	RAM_CSZ
19	AUX_CLK
20	GND
21	AUX_RDY
22	AUX_INTZ
23	LYNX3.3V
24	GND
25	VCC
26	VCC

Physical Dimensions

The physical dimension of the FireBoard 400™ is 12cm(L)x9cm(H).

Click here for the detailed mechanical dimensions.