This product enables the connection of IEEE1394 devices
to USB port of a PC or laptop/notebook.
The transmission is “unlimited” to USB High-Speed (480 Mbit/s)
or S400 speed (393.216 Mbit/s) on FireWire,
if connected devices allow such data rates.
Important! Reverse functionality,
connection of USB devices to the IEEE1394
is not possible.
A suitable driver enables access to IEEE1394 bus without changing software.
At first, software must be adopted.
The device: IEEE1394 in front, USB back
Applications
Typical devices to connect are:
Video cameras
External hard disk drives
Scanner
Other computers
Some IEEE1394 devices require power from any other device of the bus.
For those, this converter has a hollow socket to feed power by any
suitable AC/DC adaptor.
The converter itself powers solely by USB.
Currently, Linux or MacOS support is not planned.
Cloning hints
The device fits into a „Soap“ housing TEK10014.
The smallest SMD size is 0603 for capacitors
(Reichelt).
All components can be ordered at
Digikey.
The two FireWire chips by
Texas Instruments
had been ordered as sample from manufacturer.
Before populating the PCB, check net 3P3 for
short-circuits against GND.
Then populate all SMD components e.g. by reflow soldering.
Check the nets above again.
Then populate through-hole and edge-mount devices.
After population and fitting into housing
You power-up the device by connecting via a USB cable to a host PC.
Then load the Cypress development kit,
and download the firmware to serial EEPROM.
After then, Windows will pop up the Hardware Wizard to load an appropriate
driver. This driver creates a FireWire stack, that moves data via USB.
Software
This is a dual-role device and therefore needs two kinds of software
(firmware and driver):
Camera and/or audio redirector
The firmware changes one FireWire camera to a USB camera according to USB video device class
The firmware changes one FireWire audio device to a USB audio device according to USB audio device class
No driver for whatever operating system is needed, system-supplied USB drivers will run automatically
Cameras and Audio equipment appear as USB devices (may create trouble with some specialized software)
Possible support for FireWire hard disks and scanners in the same way
Plug'n'Play using EZ-USB ReNumeration feature and dynamic USB descriptors
Universal USB to FireWire converter
The firmware simply redirects all FireWire traffic over USB (i.e. USB is used as a tunnel technology)
The Windows driver creates a (USB connected) IEEE1394 host controller
with all devices connected and true Plug'n'Play
All kinds of IEEE1394 devices can be used with this adapter (while USB bandwith is still large enough),
providing the accessing software does not depend to a specific
host controller driver (i.e. QuantumX will not run with CatMan).
The driver is very hard to implement, is there any nerd around who can do this?
Expected data rates:
FireWire Isochonous: Maximum USB data rate: 24.576 MByte/s (both directions, three isochronous USB packets of 1024 bytes per microframe [125 µs])
FireWire Asynchronous: about 4 MByte/s (one direction, data must go byte-wise through 8051 kernel)
Possibly reversed depending on application or bandwidth usage
Possibly equalized to 8.192 MByte/s (both directions, i.e. four channels, two USB packets of 512 bytes per microframe [125 µs])
This download is required for cloning
and for firmware update:
Firmware for serial EEPROM
Programming of serial EEPROM can be done with EzMr out of
the Cypress development kit for EZUSB-FX2.
A special programming device is not required.
This download is sufficient for running the
device:
Q:
Is there a device for opposite direction?
For connecting USB devices to FireWire?
A:
In most cases, USB over Ethernet is suitable enough.
There are different software solutions to solve this problem, consisting of:
A USB host controller driver (HCD), seen for Windows only, that redirects to any TCP/IP remote host
A USB device driver, seen for Windows and Linux, that acts as an Application Program stub
A controlling program that assigns USB devices to the stub, possibly shared, but mostly exclusive
For FireWire, use TCP/IP over FireWire, and you are done.
If you can stick on Ethernet, a Raspberry Pi
device can act as your converter, provided you find a way to compile the stub for Linux on Arm9 architecture.
That device is also suitable to drive a USB WLAN stick, and thus act as a WLAN⇔USB converter.
Q:
Concurrents?
A:
For specific USB and FireWire class, yes. Here seen for Digital Video class.
USB to IEEE1394 converter 
