Infineon, Hitachi Prepare for Serial ATA Speed Boost.

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Infineon Technologies AG, a leading semiconductor developer, and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, a leading producer of hard disk drives (HDDs), on Friday unveiled their new read/write channel system-on-chip solutions for HDDs that can be combined with Infineon’s 6Gb/s Serdes Interface and achieve transfer rates that far exceed those of today’s Serial ATA-300 standard.

“Infineon has demonstrated leadership in silicon development in its ability to deliver higher levels of performance. We are pleased with the results of the read-channel implementation,” said Steven Smith, senior director and general manager of Rochester, Minnesota, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

The new HDD read/write channel SOC provides speed and high-performance signal processing required for next-generation perpendicular recording for hard disk drives in enterprise applications.

Complementary to the high-performance read channel, Infineon has also demonstrated silicon of its 6Gb/s multi-standard PHY (Physical Layer interface), capable to operate bit error free in “closed eye” environments required by the upcoming SAS 6G standard. The multi-standard PHY supports 6Gb/s SATA and SAS as well as Fibre-channel 4.25Gb/s standards and all their legacy modes. A 3Gb/s SATA derivative of the same baseline architecture is specifically tailored to support power sensitive mobile applications.

“High-channel data rate combined with low-power consumption are key to innovation in the enterprise segment to enable the integration of the read channel into the SoC or to provide reliable, high-quality stand-alone ICs in cost-effective packages,” said Peter Bauer, member of the management board and head of Infineon’s Automotive, Industrial and Multimarket business group. “Our presence and commitment to the market is further demonstrated by this achievement.”