The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1394 working group behind the development of FireWire in both its 400Mbps and 800Mbps configurations has formally approved the next-generation S1600 and S3200 standards. These two standards build on the already established FireWire ecosystem, and will offer speeds of 1.6Gbps and 3.2GBps, respectively. The final specification itself should be published in October, but there's no word on when we'll see shipping product, or what the adoption ratio between S1600 and S3200 will be.

Backwards compatibility concerns, thankfully, should be kept to a minimum. The new S1600/S3200 cables will be fully compatible with both older FireWire 800 cables and FireWire 400/800 devices. S3200, meanwhile, isn't the end of the line for FireWire technology, as current plans call for the interface to scale up to at least 6.4Gb/s over time. That's not going to happen any time soon, but there's obviously still plenty of headroom in the interface itself.

The IEEE 1394 standard will face a new competitor in the form of USB 3.0. USB 3.0's specification is expected to be published by the end of the year, which may give S3200 a few months' head start. FireWire, however, has never enjoyed the widespread success of USB 3.0, and as a result, could find itself the first standard out the door, but the last standard on the shelf. Motherboard manufacturers will drop USB 3.0 on high-end boards as soon as chipsets are available (even if devices aren't), but FireWire ports are considerably harder to come by.

That's not to say they don't exist, but FireWire 400 is easier to find than FireWire 800 (except on Macs), and the number of available ports is typically limited to 1-2, even on a high-end motherboard. USB 2.0 ports, on the other hand, are plentiful, with most boards offering 8-12 in some combination of included ports and onboard headers. The peripheral interconnect field is also more crowded now, and S1600/S3200 will have to compete against eSATA, as well.

Daring to mention USB 2.0's dominance over FireWire inevitably brings the standard's defenders out of the woodwork, and to be fair, FireWire has always been the more technologically-advanced standard, with its faster transfer speeds, lower CPU utilization, and the ability to provide more power to attached devices (devices that can run off a single FireWire port could well require two USB ports). These advantages, however, have never managed to overcome USB 2.0's general popularity, and FireWire remains a niche interface outside certain peripheral markets (i.e., video cameras), where it has always done well, and Macintosh computers.

Broad market penetration notwithstanding, the appearance of a faster FireWire standard will be warmly greeted by anyone frustrated by FireWire 800 transfer speeds who doesn't want to deal with the potential hassles of USB 3.0.