Serial ATA |
Serial ATA (SATA or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a computer bus interface for connecting host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives. Serial ATA was designed to replace the older ATA (AT Attachment) standard (also known as parallel ATA, or PATA in short).
SATA interface is able to use the same low level commands as parallel ATA, but serial ATA host-adapters and devices communicate via a high-speed serial cable over two pairs of conductors. In contrast, the parallel ATA used 16 data conductors each operating at a much lower speed.
SATA offers several advantages over the older PATA interface:
- reduced cable-bulk and cost (reduced from 80 wires in PATA to seven in SATA),
- faster and more efficient data transfer,
- enhanced reliability and
- hot swapping.
Serial ATA International Organization has approved three versions of SATA specification:
- SATA Revision 1.0, also known as SATA-I, allowing transfer speeds of upto 1.5 Gbit/s
- SATA Revision 2.0, also known as SATA-II, allowing transfer speeds of upto 3.0 Gbit/s
- SATA Revision 3.0, also known as SATA-III, allowing transfer speeds of upto 6.0 Gbit/s
So-Logic currently offers IP cores that comply with the SATA Specification Revision 2.6, meaning they support SATA-I and SATA-II transfer speeds. In the future So-Logic will offer IP cores that will comply with SATA Specification Revision 3.0.