.. _about-litesata:

================
About LiteSATA
================

LiteSATA provides a small footprint and configurable SATA1/2/3 core.

LiteSATA is part of LiteX libraries whose aims is to lower entry level of complex
FPGA IP cores by providing simple, elegant and efficient implementations of
components used in today's SoC such as Ethernet, SATA, PCIe, SDRAM Controller...

The core uses simple and specific streaming buses and will provides in the future
adapters to use standardized AXI or Avalon-ST streaming buses.

Since Python is used to describe the HDL, the core is highly and easily
configurable.

The synthetizable BIST can be used as a starting point to integrate SATA in
your own SoC.

LiteSATA uses technologies developed in partnership with M-Labs Ltd:
 - Migen enables generating HDL with Python in an efficient way.
 - MiSoC provides the basic blocks to build a powerful and small footprint SoC.

LiteSATA can be used as a Migen/MiSoC library (by simply installing  it
with the provided setup.py) or can be integrated with your standard design flow
by generating the verilog rtl that you will use as a standard core.

.. _about-litesata-toolchain:

Features
====================
PHY:
  - OOB, COMWAKE, COMINIT
  - ALIGN inserter/remover and bytes alignment on K28.5
  - 8B/10B encoding/decoding in transceiver
  - Errors detection and reporting
  - 32 bits interface
  - 1.5/3.0/6.0GBps supported speeds (respectively 37.5/75/150MHz system clk)
Core:
  Link:
    - CONT inserter/remover
    - Scrambling/Descrambling of data
    - CRC inserter/checker
    - HOLD insertion/detection
    - Errors detection and reporting
  Transport/Command:
    - Easy to use user interfaces (Can be used with or without CPU)
    - 48 bits sector addressing
    - 3 supported commands: READ_DMA(_EXT), WRITE_DMA(_EXT), IDENTIFY_DEVICE
    - Errors detection and reporting

Frontend:
  - Configurable crossbar (simply use core.crossbar.get_port() to add a new port!)
  - Ports arbitration transparent to the user
  - Synthetizable BIST


Possibles improvements
====================
- add standardized interfaces (AXI, Avalon-ST)
- add NCQ support
- add AES hardware encryption
- add on-the-flow compression/decompression
- add support for Altera PHYs.
- add support for Lattice PHYs.
- add support for Xilinx 7-Series GTP/GTH (currently only 7-Series GTX are
  supported)
- add Zynq Linux drivers.
- ...