Serial ATA Draft Specification 1.0 Now Available

Business Wire, Dec 18, 2000

High Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 2000

Computer industry leaders today announced that the Draft Specification 1.0 defining Serial ATA (SATA), the high performance interface for storage devices, is now available. Making the specification available to developers will help accelerate the adoption of Serial ATA in the marketplace. The specification may be downloaded from the Serial ATA Working Group website at www.serialata.org.

Serial ATA will supply storage interface headroom for many generations to come, beginning with Ultra SATA/1500 at 1.5Gbps, scalable to 2x and 4x. This interface is used to connect storage devices, such as hard disk, DVD and CD-RW drives, to the PC motherboard. Serial ATA will be the replacement for today's Parallel ATA physical storage interface. While maintaining compatibility with today's software, Serial ATA will provide a storage interface that meets the needs of tomorrow's computers and links emerging system and storage technologies. Serial ATA will also enable computer manufacturers to design systems with cables that are simpler to route and install and will enable the use of smaller connectors and lower voltages than is possible with the existing Parallel ATA technology.

The seven Serial ATA Working Group Promoters are APT Technologies Inc., Dell Computer Corporation, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Maxtor Corporation, Quantum Corporation and Seagate Technology. Since the announcement of the Serial ATA Working Group effort at the Intel Developer Forum in February 2000, the group has added more than 60 Contributor and Adopter companies to the membership from the silicon design, cable/connector, storage and systems industries.

More information about the Serial ATA Working Group is available at www.serialata.org.