Parade With 1.5V 6Gb SATA III Repeater ICs ($1.50 in Volume)

Parade Technologies Ltd., in high-speed interface products, has added two new devices to its family of SATA/eSATA/SAS bi-directional redriver integrated circuits.

The PS8521 devices are the world’s first 6 Gb/s SATA III repeater ICs (also know as redriver ICs) to incorporate adaptive equalization technology, which compensates for signal loss due to variations in PCB design.

Parade’s PS8521A is also the world’s first SATA III device using a power-saving 1.5V supply voltage. Along with the PS8521B, which uses a traditional 3.3V supply, these devices employ unique SATA power management features that were pioneered by Parade. The 1.5V PS8521A is the lowest power SATA III redriver available. Compared to alternative 3.3V SATA III devices, the PS8521A consumes 50% less power in active transmission mode.

                                      PS8521A and PS8521B SATA 6Gb/s
                                               Bidirectional Repeaters

“Parade is keenly aware of the demand for low-power devices, especially from our notebook customers,” explains Jimmy Chiu, VP of Marketing at Parade Technologies. “Our first-generation SATA ICs introduced a unique power-saving sleep mode that leveraged the bursty nature of SATA transmissions. Now that we are introducing our new 6 Gb/s SATA devices, we made sure to include a low-power 1.5V supply voltage version preferred by many notebook system designers.”

Designed for driving internal and external data storage and other peripherals, the PS8521 devices are ideal for notebook, PC motherboard and computer docking station redriver applications. Both devices support 1.5, 3 and 6 Gb/s data rates, and both are compatible with industry-standard SATA III, eSATA and SAS (serial attached SCSI) protocols. Out-of-band (OOB) signaling is also supported.

The PS8521A and PS8521B both employ the unique power-saving feature pioneered by Parade in its first-generation SATA redriver devices. The ICs automatically detect traffic on the SATA bus, transitioning into sleep mode when no traffic is present. When traffic is detected, the devices become active with less than 10 ns latency. Parade’s power-saving SATA sleep mode operation has now become widely adopted throughout the industry.

Adaptive Equalization for SATA III
To compensate for wide variations in system PCB trace and cable design and length, the PS8521 devices incorporate two important signal conditioning features: receiver adaptive equalization and output pre-emphasis technology. Adaptive equalization allows a redriver to automatically reconstruct incoming SATA signals despite challenging trace or cable electrical characteristics. The PS8521 devices are the first SATA III redrivers to integrate adaptive equalization, which offers system designers greater flexibility in PCB design and layout.

Programmable pre-emphasis enables the PS8521A and PS8521B to reduce signal jitter and optimizes the output ‘eye’ signal for robust transmission. These programmable features can be flexibly controlled either through an I2C port or directly through dedicated pin inputs.

Price and Availability
The PS8521A and PS8521B are available in a 4×4mm 20-pin TQFN package. The devices are pin-compatible with a wide variety of SATA devices, including Parade’s first-generation PS8511 device, allowing for rapid system design conversion to SATA III. The PS8521A uses a single power supply of 1.5V, and PS8521B uses a single power supply of 3.3V. The PS8521A and PS8521B are sampling now, and production volumes will be available in 3Q10. The devices sell for $1.50/ea. in volume.