We heard about USB planning to increase its speed by 10 fold back in September with USB 3.0 specs complete by mid-2008, but FireWire apparently had no intention of sitting back and being outdone. The 1394 Trade Association announced last week a new specification for FireWire that uses the same connections and cables but promises 4 times the speed of the current FireWire bringing potential speeds of up to 3.2 Gbps.

The new spec called S3200 will used 100% of its bit rate as payload and none as overhead bringing the payload speed up to 400 megabytes per second compared to 90 megabytes per second in the current FireWire 800. The new S3200 spec will also be backwards compatible with existing FireWire devices and will offer cable configurations to bring data and power over 300 feet. It also will maintain its peer-to-peer architecture to connect devices with or without a computer.

The 1394 Trade Association expects to have the S3200 FireWire ready by early February getting the jump on USB 3.0, and any products wanting to use the new specs could potentially be seen later in the year.

Release via Electronista