Point Grey Research and Quantum Parametrics (QP) have entered into an agreement under which QP will market, sell and further develop Point Grey's FirePRO LDR IEEE-1394 Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) UTP Long Haul technology.
The FirePRO LDR technology lets current and potential users of IEEE-1394 take advantage of 1000BASE-T (GigE) pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-5) signalling to achieve Gigabit transfers at distances up to 100m with CAT 5e, 6 or 7 cables.
'FireWire has guaranteed isochronous bandwidth, which is ideal for machine vision applications requiring multiple cameras streaming with very low latency,' said Michael Gibbons, product marketing manager at Point Grey Research. 'The FirePRO LDR technology removes the only real advantage - cable length - that GigE Vision cameras have over FireWire. We look forward to working with Quantum Parametrics to make the launch of this new technology a success.'
The technology was designed to enable the connection of a GigE physical layer (PHY) to one port of an IEEE-1394b PHY with minimal external circuitry. This enhancement enables S800 operation over inexpensive UTP cable on one 1394 PHY port while allowing non-FirePRO LDR connectivity on the other PHY ports. This technology may be integrated into hubs and repeaters or directly into devices. It has been integrated by Point Grey into a long distance repeater.
