LSI has rolled out samples of 40-nanometer multi-interface physical layer (PHY) IP designed for notebook, desktop and enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) market segments.
The company said that LSI TrueStore PHY9500 provides drive makers with a single system for integration into system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs across all major HDD and solid-state drive (SSD) markets, that is expected to support the 6Gb/s SAS, 6Gb/s SATA and 4.25Gb/s Fibre Channel interface standards.
According to LSI, the PHY9500 enhances signal performance compared to its previous generation with reduction in transmit jitter by up to 30%. Receiver performance has also been enhanced with an advanced adaptive equalisation scheme, improving signal-to-noise performance regardless of the signal path between host and drive.
LSI claims that the single performance is also increased with advanced test features, including ‘eye-scope’ feature that provides greater visibility into the receiver’s performance, allowing drive makers to debug their systems without requiring expensive test equipment.
In addition, the PHY9500 offers 1-lane and 2-lane configurations for reduced chip footprint, and supports multiple power management features for improved SoC efficiencies by utilising power benefits offered by 40nm technology.
Phil Brace, senior vice president of storage peripherals division at LSI, said: LSI continues to blaze the 40nm trail as part of our total recording system design, which includes the recently introduced RC9500 low-density parity check (LDPC) read channel. The versatility of the PHY9500 allows drive makers to benefit by only having a single part to qualify. This opens the door to significant cost savings and allows customers to focus on system-level design.
