Controller for storage device with improved burst efficiency

A controller for interfacing between a host and a storage medium, the storage medium partitioned into multiple sectors, the controller comprising:

• a buffer controller for arbitrating access to a buffer memory via a multi-channel bus;
• a storage medium interface through which data to and from the storage medium is transferred, the storage medium interface including channel zero (CH0) circuitry for performing a CH0 process to access the buffer memory on behalf of the storage medium;
• and
• a host interface through which data to and from the host is transferred, the host interface including channel one (CH1) circuitry for performing a CH1 process to access the buffer memory on behalf of the host,
• wherein the multi-channel bus includes a CH0 channel to which the CH0 circuitry is connected and a CH1 channel to which the CH1 circuitry is connected,
• wherein the buffer controller arbitrates access to the buffer memory in sequential tenures to each channel of the multi-channel bus within a maximum arbitration round trip time defined by a time taken by the storage medium to move a distance corresponding to N sectors in which N is an integer greater than one,
• wherein in the CH0 tenure, the CH0 process transfers data corresponding to N sectors of the storage medium in a multi-sector burst,
• wherein during the CH0 tenure, the CH0 circuitry utilizes an ECC correction queue for transferring data, the number of slots of the ECC correction queue being equal to or greater than two plus the N number of sectors,
• wherein the length of the tenure of the CH0 channel is pre-designated by a FIFO queue so that the multi-sector burst is completed within the CH0 tenure, the size of the FIFO queue being equal to or greater than the number of slots of the ECC correction queue multiplied by the sector size of one of the plurality of sectors, and
• wherein the CH0 circuitry comprises a sector state machine that determines whether to initialize bursting of data corresponding to a sector of the N sectors that is subsequent to data corresponding to another sector of the N sectors as part of the multi-sector burst.