Chip Is First To Bridge SATA to USB

Racking up a market first, the OXU921S bridge chip provides transparent data transfers between a USB 2.0 port and an external SATA disk drive. In a 128-pin QFP, the device integrates a SATA PHY, USB2.0 PHY, and an ARM7TDMI processor. Its USB2.0 link and PHY support both full- and high-speed modes and offer backward compatibility with USB 1.1. The SATA core and PHY operate at 1.5 GHz, yielding disk-interface data rates up to 150 MB/s. Other features include a 6 KB cache for USB data, 8 KB of RAM, an embedded UART, and 12 GPIOs. Price is less than $5.50 each/100,000. For more details, contact Edward Brown at OXFORD SEMICONDUCTOR INC., Mission Veijo, CA. (949) 348-1235.