Features - Storage Innovations:

MARVELL INTRODUCES SATA II PORT MULTIPLIER, PORT SELECTOR

Marvell, a technology leader in the development of extreme broadband communications and storage solutions, announced the release of the 88SM4140 Serial ATA II 1:4 port multiplier and the 88SM4030 Serial ATA II Port Selector with advanced load balancing capabilities. These latest additions to Marvell's Serial ATA product family, when combined with the company's market-leading 88SX60xx Serial ATA II 4 or 8-port Host Controllers, will enable enterprise-class port expansion and port redundancy inside storage arrays, JBODs and servers. Further, the port multiplier is also ideal for next-generation home storage applications, enabling up to 1TB of storage expansion for video, audio, and high-resolution graphics or photos inside digital set top boxes, digital video recorders (DVRs), or PCs and laptops. For example, 1TB of expanded storage could hold more than 250,000 songs or more than 1,000 full-length feature films.

"The Serial ATA II Port Multiplier and Port Selector technologies not only provide the connectivity and redundancy capabilities necessary to address the needs of server and networked storage solutions, but also creates new opportunities for Serial ATA in consumer electronics and home media applications where cost effective dense storage is required," said Knut Grimsrud, chairman of the Serial ATA Working Group and Intel senior principal engineer. "With the introduction of new Serial ATA II products, such as Marvell's 88SM4140 Port Multiplier and 88SM4030 Port Selector, cost effective Serial ATA-based storage solutions can deliver new capabilities and value to customers and creates the opportunity for exciting new applications of Serial ATA storage."

The 88SM4140 port multiplier device offers the industry's first production-ready solution for port expansion. The device enables one active host connection to communicate with up to 4 Serial ATA disk drives. The device uses Marvell's production-proven Serial ATA PHY technology and supports both 1.5Gbps and 3.0Gbps speeds with adjustable pre-emphasis and amplitude settings on all 5 ports (1 host, 4 device) for tuning high-speed, long-trace backplane implementations. The device also provides one Storage Enclosure Management Bridge (SEMB) port for communication with a Storage Enclosure Processor. Per the Serial ATA II specification, the 88SM4140 supports command-based and FIS-based switching supporting simultaneous queued operations to all attached devices. The 88SM4140 also supports a Marvell-proprietary mode called queued command based switching which enables the performance advantages of FIS-based switching but with reduced complexity.

The 88SM4030 port selector device allows two Serial ATA host ports to connect to the same disk drive, creating a redundant path to the drive. This capability, imperative to high-availability enterprise-class storage systems, enables Serial ATA to deliver cost effective solutions for applications previously requiring SCSI or FibreChannel technology. The port selector uses Marvell's production-proven Serial ATA PHY technology and supports both 1.5Gbps and 3.0Gbps speeds with adjustable pre-emphasis and amplitude settings on all ports. The 88SM4030 supports 3 modes of port selection control: Side-band switch control, protocol-based switch control, and primitive-based switch control. The first two modes are used for fail-over in systems requiring redundancy. The third, primitive-based switch control, is a Marvell-proprietary mode used in conjunction with Marvell's 88SX60xx 4 or 8-port Host Controller that enables high-speed switching for load balancing applications. This feature, not available on typical analog muxes, enables high-end enterprise systems the ability to distribute data traffic between two SATA host controllers.

"Marvell has extended its leadership in Serial ATA connectivity solutions once again by being the first to go to full production on Serial ATA II Port Multipliers and Port Selectors," stated Balaji Baktha, Marvell's general manager of Embedded and Emerging Business Unit. "These two technologies enable our storage and system OEM customers to build high-density, redundant storage systems for the enterprise and the home."