FireWire

views updated May 11 2018

FireWire / ˈfī(ə)rˌwī(ə)r/ • n. trademark Comput. a technology that allows high-speed communication and data exchange between a computer and a peripheral or between two computers: transfer of digital content to DVD over FireWire [as adj.] a FireWire port. Also see IEEE 1394.

firewire

views updated May 21 2018

firewire A high-speed, general purpose serial bus supporting a chain of up to 63 devices. Operating at a speed of up to 400Mbps it has, to a large degree, been overtaken by USB, which can operate at up to 480 Mbps. However, firewire is still the main system used for transfer of video between computers and digital camcorders and some external disk drives also use this interface. Firewire is also known as IEEE1394 and, on computers produced by Sony, as iLink.