Group announces Serial ATA spec; bridge chips help you meet it

The Serial ATA Working Group in August at the Intel Developer Forum in San Jose announced Version 1.0 of its serial ATA specification. The Serial ATA member companies are promoting the interface as a replacement for the parallel ATA/ATAPI interface. The new specification defines a data rate of 1.5 Gbps, or about 150 Mbytes/sec. The latest ATA/ATAPI-6 specification's top data rate is 100 Mbytes/sec (see "If I only had a drive," EDN, Sept 13, 2001, pg 30). In addition to being faster than the parallel interface, Serial ATA cuts the number of I/O lines from 26 to four and the signaling voltage from 5V to 250 mV. The serial interface's smaller, thinner cable gives manufacturers greater system design flexibility and better airflow for cooling. The working group aimed for 100% software compatibility with existing ATA/ATAPI systems. The new interface replaces the parallel ATA PHY with a serial one. Jason Ziller, Serial ATA Working Group chairman, expects to see the first Serial ATA/1500 storage products in the first half of 2002.

To help you cross over from parallel ATA to serial ATA, Marvell announced the availability of its 88i8030 bridge chip. The 88i8030 is the first serial ATA chip to work on both the host and the device sides of the interface. By converting parallel ATA to serial ATA, motherboard and drive manufacturers can use the chip to bring Serial ATA products to market using parallel ATA components. Sample quantities of the 1.8V bridge chip are available today in 64-pin TQFPs. The 88i8030 supports ATA UDMA (Ultra DMA) speeds of 100, 133, and 150 Mbytes/sec. Marvell offers an evaluation system comprising host and drive "dongle" boards for $500.

Serial ATA Working Group, www.serialata.org.

Marvell Semiconductor Inc, 1-408-222-2500, www.marvell.com.