PC6-TANGO • CompactPCI
®
PlusIO • Intel® Atom™ E39xx Processor (APL-I SoC)
Serial ATA Interface (SATA)
The PC6-TANGO provides a total of up to four serial ATA (SATA) 6Gbps ports, suitable for attachment
of mass storage devices. Two ports are derived directly from two the APL-I SoC; another two ports are
available as an option via an on-board SATA controller.
The APL SATA port P0 is in use for an on-board CFast™ connector. CFast™ cards are available up to
512GB storage capacity as of current, sufficient for typical operating system installation and
application programs.
The APL SATA port P1 is wired to the mezzanine connector HSE, for optional usage with a low profile
mezzanine module such as the C48-M2 (M.2 SATA SSD storage).
As an option, the PC6-TANGO can be equipped with a discrete on-board SATA controller in addition,
providing another two SATA 6Gbps ports. The Marvell 88SE9170 is an SATA 6Gbps I/O controller,
connected to the system via PCI Express®. One of the 88SE9170 SATA ports is wired to the
mezzanine connector HSE, and the other to the backplane connector J2. The 88SE9170 shares a
common PCIe lane from the APL SoC with the on-board NIC devices, by means of a PCI Express®
packet switch. Therefore the maximum throughput of the 88SE9170 SATA ports may be somewhat
reduced compared to the APL native SATA ports.
As mentioned, a single SATA port is used to supply the CompactPCI
®
PlusIO SATA interface on the
backplane or rear I/O module, via the J2 UHM connector. Please note, that the CompactPCI® PlusIO
specification refers to SATA data rates of 1.5Gbps and 3Gbps. EKF has tested successfully also 6G over
the backplane with sample devices, but cannot guarantee this data rate under any condition. Other
devices and other backplane brands/types in use may cause a different result. If in doubt, the Marvell
SATA controller should be initialized for 3Gbps. EKF recommends that customers validate their
particular SATA 6G application thoroughly, since SATA channel data errors can decrease the
performance considerably.
A bicolor LED named HD located in the front panel, signals the activity status of any APL SATA device
(green) or 88SE9170 SATA device (yellow).
Windows® drivers and software for the 88SE9170 is provided by Marvell and can be downloaded
from the EKF website.
© EKF -27- ekf.com
