Digital-Storage IP Solutions: Fulfilling the Demand for Today's Consumer Electronics

Everywhere we turn, we see new and dynamic consumer electronics in use. Such products range from personal-entertainment devices like the Apple iPod to the latest multimedia cell phones operating as a digital camera, MP3 player, video player, e-mail, and Internet connectivity device all in one. These portable, personal electronic devices have created greater demand for storage space on hard drives along with faster transfer speeds. Consumer-electronics companies must consider these key requirements in order to remain competitive and profitable. Serial ATA (SATA) is one technology that manufacturers are using to feed the growing demand for additional storage. Along with its faster transfer speeds, SATA allows for smaller form factors and better "real-time" performance.

Tremendous Growth in Storage Devices

According to Dataquest's 2005 report on hard disk drives (HDDs), the consumption of HDDs (non-PC applications) will grow to 216,213 units by 2009. They will then equate to more than 40% of the total HDD market. With the explosion of personal electronics requiring storage capabilities, this figure may even be conservative. When MP3 players were first introduced, they were only used for audio. The players could store up to 2 GBytes of data. As cheaper and higher-density HDDs became available, they opened up applications that could tap digital video content. Larger data content is being created, sent, and stored. Audio/video players now provide 80 GBytes of storage, allowing users to view full-length movies. The consumer appetite for data storage will certainly continue to grow, requiring larger HDDs with reliable digital-storage solutions.

As a semiconductor intellectual-property (IP) provider, we provide a range of embedded IP cores. These cores target a variety of consumer and communications applications spanning Universal Serial Bus (USB), Ethernet, Peripheral, and SATA. The SATA IP technology should spur further innovations in portable electronic devices, resulting in greater storage capacity and the ability to move data on and off a drive faster than ever imagined. IP providers therefore enable electronic-design companies to adopt reliable and user-friendly SATA IP.

The Value of SATA IP

Although it's not as ubiquitous as USB for today's consumer electronics, SATA is a high-performance disk interface. It was originally designed for mainstream computing applications in the PC space. Due to its transfer speeds, however, SATA is beginning to be used outside of the PC. It is now making its way into consumer electronics. This external SATA or eSATA is already showing up in new products that have a large demand for storage.

Why choose SATA over USB IP? The biggest difference is probably how the data flow is handled. USB sends control and data packets with a Master/Slave configuration. SATA uses the same protocol that all hard drives have used over the years. But it has fewer commands and eliminates the negotiating of rights or other overhead that's normally associated with USB. The result is faster data transfers and less CPU intervention. The theoretical speeds of SATA also are faster than USB. Using the same hardware setup, for example, a large data file transfer on USB at 33 to 34 Mbits/s would run 40 to 60 Mbits/s with SATA—roughly a 2X improvement. With USB, the information has to be converted over from the Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) interface so USB can "talk with" the hard drives. This requirement causes even more performance degradation, which isn't the case with SATA.

IP Selection and Integration Considerations

Design teams need to consider the risks of integrating third-party SATA IP. Before designing their systems, teams must make sure that the SATA IP is available, independently tested, and supported. Once the IP has been acquired, design teams should resist "tweaking" it. After all, any modifications introduce risk and decrease return on investment (ROI). If modifications are needed, solutions external to the IP block should be considered first.

With today's design complexity for consumer products, it makes more sense for a third-party IP provider to offer an IP "subsystem." A SATA subsystem might include the digital (controller) IP, analog hardware (PHY) IP, and embedded-software (stack/driver) IP. This SATA IP subsystem should be independently tested. It also should meet standard requirements including fully integrated and verified hardware and software.

With a true IP subsystem, risk and cost are significantly reduced. Integration and interoperability problems are validated before adoption, resulting in greater "first-pass" silicon. In addition, the hardware and software have already been fully integrated and verified numerous times. Design teams can therefore focus on designing the key differentiators of their designs. We've seen customers spend months of unplanned debugging between their embedded-software and hardware IP. With the SATA IP subsystem, SoC teams don't need in-depth knowledge on how to integrate SATA IP components. They're using certified, integrated IP blocks.

Ultimately, the SATA IP subsystem can save time and integration costs by enabling the designer to use fewer IP blocks that they have to connect together. As a result, design teams can deliver powerful and innovative consumer electronics with minimized risk and higher profitability.

Bill Martin is the General Manager of Mentor Graphics' Intellectual Property division, the industry's second-largest standards-based IP provider. He has over 25 years of experience in consulting, product design, and project management. Martin holds five patents. He joined Mentor in 2000 as U.S. Director of Mentor Consulting and was promoted to VP of Mentor Consulting. Previously, Martin worked for Synopsys and VLSI Technology. He holds an MBA in Marketing/Finance from the University of Texas at Dallas and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana.