[Arm-netbook] SATA and IDE memory-addressable ICs

Mon Apr 5 19:24:34 BST 2010

Hello Luke,

Am 2010-04-05 18:01:52, hacktest Du folgendes herunter:
>  ahh, what about ATMEL's AT78C5091? it is a single-channel SATA to 8
> or 10 bit parallel bus.  do you have a contact at ATMEL that you could
> ask?

OK, I will ask...

> >  Only PCI/PCIe based ones.
>  ... and that means having a PCI/PCI-e chip which, well... yeah, it
> could be done... but if going for PCI-e then might as well just have
> that alone, and let people put in a micro PCI-e SSD rather than use
> SATA.

No, useing a microcontroller wir PCIe port included.

> > Generaly the ATAPI Protocoll is not very difficult and  can  implemented
> > in a 75MHz 8051 Flash controller with less then 32 kByte of Flash memory
>  interesting idea!

The Maxim DS80C411 (75MHz) has enough speed and IO-Pins to support  even
2 PATA channels with up to 4 drives.  OK, not ATA6, but a software  raid
could be implemented too...  inside the 8051 microcontroller.

This would be Hardware-Raid without cache memory.

And of course, a very intersting project to work on.

> > CF-Cards are ATAPI compatibel...
> yes.  i was surprised about that.

:-)

> > Maybethis woud work less expensive for us then looking for a dedicated
> > SATA/ATAPI controller which are mostly rather expensive mean 7+ US$.
> 
>  yes - and what is more, it would fit nicely with the principle of a
> 100% free software machine: stuff the dedicated hardware, do it
> yourself.

The problem is HOW TO FIND very good 8051-ASM coders.

OK, the AppNote 282 from SiLabs is ANSI C but I  do  not  know,  whether
"sdcc" can optimise the code very well for speed because it is a  little
bit critic.

>  and, also, i think it would be easier to get hold of, there are
> people saying that they too have tried getting hold of SATA PHY chips
> and not been able to get them, for absolutely ages.

I call it Fsck!
Even the smalest chinese SATA chip manufaturer ask you to sign a NDA!

I have a list with  bunch of SATA/SAS Chip manufacturers  and  there  is
not a singel onne, which give you any usefull documents without NDA.

However, the specs are  open  and  here  is  already  someone  who  hast
software implemened the SATA protocoll to attach a SATA 150 Drive  to  a
microcontroller witthout using a NDA'ed SATA chip.

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day/Evening
    Michelle Konzack
    Systemadministrator
    24V Electronic Engineer
    Tamay Dogan Network
    Debian GNU/Linux Consultant

-- 
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