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OMAP-L138: SATA III compatability

Part Number: OMAP-L138
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: AM5716

hi,

a cusotmer of mine makes telecommunication PBX (IP and normal Line).

They have an issue with OMAP-L138, and it seems that due to bug in silicon OMAP do not support SATA III.

As Drives with SATA II seems to run dry, suppliers switches to SATA III, and they need support on how to overcome this issue.

There is Errata available with  “'port multiplier” although they asses this will be a very expensive solution for them.

They would like to get our feed if there might be any other solution to solve that issue (external chip).

any advice is more than welcome

thanks a lot in advance

KR

Vincenzo 

  • Hi Vincenzo,

    I've forwarded this to the OMAP-L138 experts. Their feedback should be posted here.

    BR
    Tsvetolin Shulev
  • Hi Vincenzo

    Unfortunately this has been a nasty silicon errata for SATA users on OMAPL1x family. This has come up before and unfortunately we do not have any additional suggestions beyond what is listed in the errata in terms of workaround.

    We have seen some customers go the route of
    >> Use GEN3 drives with jumper restricting capabilities to restrict their speed to GEN2

    However I do not know how many HDDs have this ability and obviously it hurts the data rate and generic inter-operability .

    I am not aware of any other solution for this but perhaps someone from the community may have some additional guidance.

    Regards
    Mukul
  • hi Mukul,

    thanks a lot for the prompt reply...
    is there any plan to fix this in the silicon?
    could we recommend another device (like www.ti.com/.../am5716)
    is there a SATA3 controller (that we don't have, for what I can see) and interface it with OMAP?

    thanks a lot in advance
    KR
    Vincenzo
  • Hi Vincenzo
    Sorry for the late response.
    No plans to rev OMAPL1x silicon at this point.
    AM5716 is likely the best in terms of the latest ARM+DSP device with SATA.
    I see the feature list mention SATA- I and II only.
    I will ping the am57x SATA experts to see if they have any additional inputs on this.

    Regards
    Mukul
  • Vincenzo,

    Mukul is correct...this IP issue was discovered and fixed prior to AM571x PG and as such this device is not affected. Please refer to the AM571x Errata to ensure that this device meets the customer's needs.

    -DK