The IrDA and Its Standards

The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) is a group of computer, telecommunications, and semiconductor manufacturers and consumer products companies that have worked together to define the IrDA specification as an industry standard. By implementing the IrDA standard, member and non-member companies can create devices that cooperate with each other to share the IR spectrum in a cooperative fashion. For more information about IrDA, contact

For a description of the current IrDA standards, see Current IrDA Standards. For a description of future IrDA standards, see Future IrDA Standards.

Current IrDA Standards

Current IrDA standards are:

• Serial Infrared (SIR) physical layer specification, which provides for serial infrared links running up to 115.2 Kbps. High speed physical layer specifications have been approved by IrDA that will support link speeds of 1.152 Mbps and 4.0 Mbps.
• IR Link Access Protocol (IrLAP) provides a reliable point-to-point link, which effectively replaces a three-wire serial cable connection.
• IR Link Management Protocol (IrLMP) provides for multiple sessions over the single point-to-point link.
• An Information Access Service (IAS) is also specified through which a device can learn about the services offered by another device.

Future IrDA Standards

IrDA standards currently under development are:

• IR COMM which provides full emulation of three-wire, nine-wire, null modem, and parallel connections. The emulation sends the state information that is normally maintained by signals on the Carrier Detect (CD), Data Terminal Ready (DTR), Clear To Send (CTS), and other communication control lines.
• Tiny TP, which provides a tiny transport protocol to provide session-level flow control on a link.
• Object Exchange, which provides a protocol that transfers generic data objects (such as a business card or an address book entry) between applications running on different machines.