Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Oxford Semiconductor | Subject: OXUF924DSa and DSb
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 09 August 2005
Bridge chips futureproof storage
interfaces
The OXUF924DSa and DSb provide external storage designers with a complete solution for bridging between SATA disks and USB2.0, FireWire400, FireWire800 and external SATA ports.
The OXUF924DSa and DSb from Oxford Semiconductor provide external storage designers with a complete solution for bridging between SATA disks and USB2.0, FireWire400, FireWire800 and external SATA ports These highly integrated bridge chips enable drive manufacturers to introduce future-proof PC and Mac compatible combination products that benefit from a low component count and optimised data throughput
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 22 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Backed by an industry-proven 1.5GHz embedded serdes, the bridge chips' dual SATA II compliant core and PHY support a data transmission rate of up to 150Mbyte/s.
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Alternatively, one SATA port can be configured as a host-facing interface for eSATA to SATA connections.
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Both FireWire interface standards are supported by the bridge chips: FireWire400 by the OXUF924DSa and FireWire800 by the OXUF924DSb.
The chips' embedded IEEE1394 PHY interface and Link layer operates at up to 400 and 800Mbit/s, respectively, and hardware acceleration optimises reads, writes and small data block transfers to assure industry-leading data throughput.
Supporting both full and high speed operating modes, and using the mass storage device protocol, the chips' 480Mbit/s USB2.0 Link and Phy ensure fast read and write transfers and maximum possible host performance.
The interface is backwards compatible with USB1.1 and is supported by an integral 18Kbyte data cache.
ARM7 based and integrating 8Kbyte of closely-coupled RAM, a 1Mbyte external Flash interface and 12 GPIOs, these dual SATA bridge chips provide developers with significant opportunities for product differentiation.
A 12Mbit/s embedded UART is provided for firmware code development and debug, while field upgrades are also simple to implement via the chips' FireWire or USB ports.
To ensure rapid product development, the OXUF924DSa and DSb share a common software base with other Oxford Semiconductor devices.
In addition, the bridge chips are backed by a complete software development kit and evaluation boards.
Oxford Semiconductor's VP of Marketing Mark Glover commented: "The performance of the latest SATA hard disk drives exceeds the capability of USB2.0".
"In response, leading motherboard manufacturers are already introducing FireWire800 boards, and our bridge chips are the first to enable external storage manufacturers to produce SATA based products today with high speed FireWire800 and eSATA connectivity built-in".
Through distribution channels the price of the OXUF924DSa (FireWire400) is $8.70 in 10,000 piece quantities and the price of the OXUF924DSb (FireWire800) is $11.90 in 10,000 piece quantities.
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