CEVA, Inc. and Gennum Corporation’s Snowbush IP Group announced that they have partnered to deliver a complete Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 2.0 IP solution optimized for embedded storage applications. The integrated offering combines Snowbush silicon-proven 6.0Gbps PHY IP integrated with CEVA’s SAS 2.0 Controller IP, offering the industry’s most mature and feature rich SAS 2.0 IP solution.

With ever-increasing requirements for higher performance and higher reliability, the enterprise storage industry is rapidly evolving from parallel SCSI to Serial Attached SCSI. SAS 2.0, which doubles the line rate to 6Gbps compared to the previous generation, has now become the preferred choice for new SAS products designs.

The CEVA-SAS 2.0 Controller IP provides both Target and Initiator functionality. Suitable for narrow or wide port implementations for 6.0/3.0/1.5Gbps data rates, it supports many enterprise level features including SCSI SBC-2 End-to-End Protection (DIF) and high performance, full duplex DMA with IEEE 1212.1 Scatter/Gather. Reflecting the system complexities of SAS, it provides a comprehensive configuration, control and alarm / status monitoring interface with extensive metric counters and error injection facilities. With complete programmable control for Vendor Specific features, the CEVA-SAS 2.0 Controller IP enables customers to create highly differentiated and robust SAS 2.0 products.

The Snowbush-SAS PHY IP is designed for easy integration into SoC designs for storage applications in process geometries ranging from 130nm down to 40nm. The Snowbush-SAS PHY’s programmable high-swing transmit driver can produce 1.8V p-p output swings, exceeding the SAS-2 specification requirements for maximum peak-to-peak voltage. The advanced TX equalization provides up to 12dB of pre-emphasis, and includes independent control of pre-cursor and post-cursor levels. Built-in spread spectrum clock (SSC) generation supports down-spreading and center-spreading for maximum flexibility without the need for an external SSC clock source. Enhanced receiver equalization, including an auto-calibrating continuous time linear equalizer (CTLE) and decision feedback equalization (DFE), are included to meet the demands of lossy SAS-2 backplanes. Snowbush-SAS PHY is silicon proven in volume production and Snowbush offers expert integration support enabling customers to meet their market and product differentiation goals.

Information and further details of about each part of the SAS Controller to SAS PHY solution are available from the respective vendors. Contact CEVA at sales@ceva-dsp.com. Contact Snowbush IP at sales@snowbush.com.