SATA Express SSD Decode Support for PCI Express Protocol Analysis

30 May 2012 - LeCroy demonstrated new features added to its PCI Express protocol analyzer line of products that will support testing and debugging of all recently announced PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) host interfaces. Previously, LeCroy had been the first to introduce NVM Express decode functionality to all of their Summit protocol analyzer line of products, helping reduce decoding time for complex PCIe host/device transactions.

Now LeCroy is broadening its support of SSD host interfaces to include support for the SATA Express's SATA AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface).

SATA Express is being developed by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO). SATA Express combines the SATA AHCI software specification with the PCIe host interface. This enables new devices to be developed that utilize the faster PCIe interface and maintain compatibility with a broad base of existing SATA applications.

"SATA Express will provide the higher performance that is required by SSD technology," said Mladen Luksic, SATA IO President. "Support from companies like LeCroy makes it possible for developers to see and understand the storage protocol traffic between SATA Express devices and the host controller. Having this equipment available is an important foundation component for building SCSI Express infrastructure in enterprise storage."

The storage industry is developing this technology for several reasons, including faster data access, increased longevity and reliability, less noise, non-volatile storage and less maintenance of failing hard drives.

"PCI Express is rapidly becoming adopted by technologies requiring greater I/O speed. LeCroy supports the complexity of these new technologies by adding new features like these SSD decodes to our Summit analyzer platforms as standard features," said John Wiedemeier, Product Marketing Manager for the Interconnect Communications Group, LeCroy Corporation. "The Summit Family of products provides an important requirement to insure quality and performance for PCIe-based SSD development."

All LeCroy protocol analyzers feature a hierarchical display, real-time statistics, protocol traffic summaries, detailed error reports, powerful scripting, and the ability to create user-defined test reports which allow developers to troubleshoot intricate problems and finish their projects on time.

The SATA AHCI SSD decode features are included, at no charge, in the PETracer 6.55 software release.