Date: 07/03/2011

Signal repeater ICs for SATA

Integrated Device Technology has announced its signal-conditioning repeater are full compliant with the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) 6Gb/s standard for Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and Solid State Drive (SSD) interfaces. IDT says its devices are the first fully-compliant repeater components.

SATA repeaters are used to maintain signal integrity while using long cables in servers, workstations, desktop, notebook PCs, and enterprise storage systems. The IDT 2-channel (1-lane) 6Gb/s SATA 89HP0602Q repeater enables 6Gb/s-per-channel operation over the same distance as older 3Gb/s implementations across system backplanes or over long cables in eSATA applications

"Once again, IDT affirms its position as a leader in multi-gigabit-rate connectivity solutions for the computing market. This compliance certification represents a significant step forward in providing customers with a device that is easy to use and improves system operation and reliability," said Mario Montana, vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Computing Division at IDT. "This SATA certification follows compliance certification by the PCI SIG of our PCIe Gen 2 repeaters and further demonstrates IDT's commitment to our portfolio of signal-conditioning products."

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"IDT's signal integrity products arm system designers with the tools they need to deploy new high-speed standards," said Mike Engbretson Chief Technology Engineer of Granite River Labs. "The IDT 6G SATA repeaters enable the linking of server storage sub-systems with high-speed communications that conform to the new 6G SATA standard. The convenience of using a repeater to ensure signal integrity and standards compliance will provide a clear benefit to many 6G SATA applications."

The IDT 89HP0602Q repeater includes a high-performance analog front end receiver, followed by an adjustable Continuous Time Linear Equalizer (CTLE). This highly sensitive input can recover data from a very small millivolt-range input signal. The device's output transmitter provides adjustable swing and de-emphasis to pre-compensate the transmission signal allowing data communication over a long trace or cable.