Back to results
US 2003/0191874 A1Published application
ATA/SATA combined controller
AssigneeAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc.
InventorsHenry Drescher, Frank Barth
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
AssigneeAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc.
InventorsHenry Drescher, Frank Barth
Estimating the term…
A combined ATA and SATA controller is provided that comprises a control unit for controlling data transfer to and/or from an ATA compliant parallel storage device and a control unit for controlling data transfer to and/or from an SATA compliant serial storage device. The controller can concurrently perform the data transfer to and/or from the parallel and serial devices. By reusing a significant amount of controller hardware, the combined controller can be realized in a cost effective manner.
A control apparatus for controlling data transfer to and/or from storage devices, comprising:
An integrated circuit chip comprising circuitry for performing data transfer to and/or from ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) and SATA (Serial ATA) devices, comprising:
A method of operating a control apparatus for controlling data transfer to and/or from storage devices, the method comprising:
An ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) control apparatus for controlling data transfer to and/or from storage devices, comprising:
A method of operating an ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) control apparatus for controlling data transfer to and/or from storage devices, the method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
Drawings are temporarily unavailable. Open the PDF at USPTO
From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Backward citations are indexed for grants only.
Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management: by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for…
Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems: by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices: controller…
Single storage device: disk device
Term end not estimated
1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to controlling data transfer to and/or from storage devices, and relates in particular to ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) and SATA (Serial ATA) controllers.
2. Description of the Related Art
The accompanying drawings are incorporated into and form a part of the specification for the purpose of explaining the principles of the invention. The drawings are not to be construed as limiting the invention to only the illustrated and described examples of how the invention can be made and used. Further features and advantages will become apparent from the following and more particular description of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional computer system that is connected to ATA compliant storage devices;
FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional computer system that is connected to SATA compliant storage devices;
The illustrative embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the figure drawings wherein like elements and structures are indicated by like reference numbers.
Referring now to the drawings and particularly to FIG. 3 which illustrates the hardware components of an ATA controller according to an embodiment, the controller comprises a target interface unit 305 and a source interface unit 310. Both interfaces are connected to the host interface 300 for exchanging requests and data with the software driver 120. The target interface 305 may be used by the driver 120 for accessing the controller for configuration purposes. On the other hand, the source interface 310 may be used to perform data access to read or write data to/from the storage devices.
There is further provided a bus master engine 320 for controlling which one of the master control unit 325 and the slave control unit 330 is granted access to which one of the target interface 305 and the source interface 310, and vice versa. The master control unit 325 and the slave control unit 330 may be built up like in conventional ATA controllers 125 that control a parallel port to which two parallel devices can be connected, one being the master and the other being the slave.