Evatronix announces the C1394A Software Stack supporting the IEEE1394a standard

Portable, enriched with an Application Programming Interface (API) with a rich set of high-level functions offers a powerful solution for SoC designers targeting DVD, DTV, camcorders and other electronic products.

Gliwice & Bielsko-Biala, Poland, April 19, 2007 - The silicon Intellectual Property (IP) provider, Evatronix SA, today announced the availability of its C1394A Software Stack, working with the C1394A controller, which provides Link Layer functionality, with reference to IEEE 1394-1995 and IEEE 1394a-2000 standards. The C1394A Software Stack meets the growing demand for IEEE 1394a devoted software for SoC designers targeting the market for data storage devices, automotive entertainment solutions, home entertainment networks, industrial control and other high-performance consumer electronic products. Being written in pure ANSI C language with a clearly separated hardware-dependent part, the Software Stack can be easily ported to different CPU architectures.

“C1394A Software Stack together with C1394A controller build complete 1394a solution, dedicated to audio/video and data storage market, where wide bandwidth and high reliability are required.”- said Wojciech Sakowski, Evatronix president. “ Our introduction of the new C1394A Software Stack is perfectly timed for the resurgence of interest in the IEEE 1394a family standards. Additionally we added advanced, management features such as built-in Bus Master and Isochronous Resource Manager functionality, therefore our C1394A Software Stack can be used in host devices, for example in digital camcorder base stations or in-car AV systems.”

The C1394A Software Stack, which is intended to work with C1394A – IEEE 1394a Link Layer controller, provides Application Programming Interface (API) with a set of high-level functions to configure and perform data transmission with remote devices. There is also a software implementation of transaction and management layers of IEEE1394a serial bus.

Just three macros are to be defined while porting to another CPU architecture. Three stack layers (user API, protocol operations, hardware access part) are divided into twelve modules providing four type transfer support (asynchronous, isochronous, asynchronous streaming and control – physical) for complete data exchange solution. Customer can use configuration ROM routines for customizing bus device description and Bus Manager functionality to provide fully independent 1394a-node, such as automatic Speed- and Topology Map building & managing and BM-specific CSRs implementation.

Availability, options

The C1394A Software Stack is available now in a form of complete ANSI C source code accompanied by user documentation including source code documentation and Integration Manual, compilation support (Tasking C Compiler). An example application for isochronous transfers is also included in the package providing a guide to utilize the Software Stack. Moreover, the Software Stack also includes support for easy stack extensibility. Customers may also specify and receive any non-standard configuration that meets their particular needs.