XRS10L120

PRELIMINARY XRS10L120 SERIAL ATA II: 1:2 PORT MULTIPLIER DECEMBER 2006 REV. P1.0.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION The EXAR XRS10L120 is a Serial ATA port multiplier designed for next generation enterprise class disk array systems that use SATA mid-planes. The device is targeted at low cost storage applications. This function is used when one active host has to communicate with multiple SATA drives. The XRS10L120 supports up to 2 SATA drives and utilizes the full bandwidth of the host connection. The upstream ports of XRS10L120 can also be attached to a port selector (XRS10L210) or a Serial ATA Switch to provide redundancy in a more complex topology. The XRS10L120 includes enhanced features such as staggered HDD spin-up, power management control, hot plug capability and support for legacy software. The XRS10L120 acts as a retimer, maintaining independent signaling domains between the drives themselves and the external interconnect. The high-speed serial input features selectable equalization adjustment and the high-speed serial output features selectable pre-emphasis to compensate for ISI (Inter-Symbol Interference) and increase maximum cable distances. XRS10L120 meets tight jitter budgets in SATA applications. Exar's serial I/O technology enables reliable data transmission over 1 meter or more of FR-4 and 15 meters or more of unequalized copper cable. Host and drive port speeds can be mixed and matched, based upon inherent data rate negotiation present in the SATA II specifications...