Minutes of SAS PHY Working Group - September 13, 2011T10/11-443r0

1. Opening Remarks

The meeting opened at 9:00 am. Alvin thanked EMC for hosting and participants introduced themselves.

2. SAS Physical Working Group Attendance Report - September 2011

Name S Organization

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Mr. Min-Jie Chong P AV Agilent Technologies

Mr. Zhineng Fan A Amphenol Interconnect

Mr. Michael Wingard A Amphenol Interconnect

Mr. Bill Lynn A Dell, Inc.

Mr. Mickey Felton A EMC Corporation

Mr. Andrew Zambell V FCI

Mr. Douglas Wagner P FCI Electronics

Mr. Fred Fons P Foxconn Electronics

Dr. Chien-Ping Kao V Foxconn Electronics

Dr. A.J. Yang V Foxconn Electronics, Inc.

Mr. Barry Olawsky A Hewlett-Packard Company

Mr. Dan Colegrove P Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Mr. John Lee V ICT-LANTO

Mr. Richard Mellitz A Intel Corporation

Dr. Mark Seidel P Intel Corporation

Mr. Joel Silverman P Kawasaki Microelectronics America

Mr. Patrick Bashford A LSI Corporation

Mr. Harvey Newman A LSI Corporation

Mr. George Penokie A LSI Corporation

Mr. Bill Voorhees A LSI Corporation

Mr. Paul Wassenberg A Marvell Semiconductor Inc

Mr. Brian Rush A Maxim Integrated Products

Mr. Kevin Witt A Maxim Integrated Products

Mr. Jay Neer P Molex Inc

Mr. Michael Rost A Molex Inc

Mr. Mathieu Gagnon A PMC-Sierra

Mr. Tim Symons P PMC-Sierra

Mr. Dave Landsman A SanDisk IL Ltd.

Mr. Alvin Cox A Seagate Technology

Mr. Ray Pavlak V Seagate Technology

Mr. Eric Lanning A AV SerialTek LLC

Mr. David Brewer P STEC Inc

Mr. Tom Grzysiewicz A TE Connectivity

Mr. Doron Lapidot A TE Connectivity

Mr. Scott Shuey P TE Connectivity

Mr. John Calvin V Tektronix

Mr. Mike Fitzpatrick P Toshiba America Information Systems

Mr. Michael Koffman A Western Digital Corporation

Mr. Alan Westbury P Xyratex

39 People Present

Status Key: P - Principal

A - Alternate

AV - Advisory Member

E - Emeritus

L - Liaison

V - Visitor

3. Review of documents and proposals

The agenda was reviewed and several items not included on the agenda for discussion. 11-378r0 was moved to the beginning of the discussion followed by a review of 11-221r7. The remaining items were sorted by topic and the MultiLink connector discussion was deferred to later in the day.

4. SAS-3

4.1 SPL-2: Minimum UI for Detection of Invalid Pattern Marker (11-378r0) [Voorhees]rather than

There is an issue in pattern marker detection mechanism. After the Protocol group discussion resulted in a request for the phy group to review the proposal, 13 UI was agreed uponto be the lower bound on the invalid pattern marker. 11 UI is problematic and 15 is considered too high. There is more ambiguity at the low end than the high end. The compromise value received consensus of the concerned parties, including the party that had voted no during the protocol working group. Based on the resolution being made within the phy group and the previous conversation in the protocol group, the phy group recommends 11-378r0 as revised (11-378r1) to be included in SPL-2 (unanimous).

4.28 SAS-3 Electrical Spec (11-221r7) [Witt]

Several editorial items were discussed, however, most of the time was spent on technical issues and how the standard deals with 12G versus legacy plus specific 12G conceptual concerns.

The discussion regarding table 37 discussion (page 162)pointed out that there are certain items in the table that apply to IT/CT rather than at the end of the channel (ball-to-ball concept). Kevin took several notes and will address the issues in a revised version.

It was suggested that the equalization coefficients be specified as V/V to give insight into the unit-less ratio.

The 12G reference transmitter device should indicate the pre-cursor and post-cursor for clarification. It should also add text regarding application to 6Gbps transmitter training.

For the reference transmitter device specified in Table 43, the RJ reflects a 10e12 BER value. Is this correct?

Several additional items were discussed and notes taken. One issue is the label “trained 12Gbps”. The comment was made that all 12Gbps is trained so the trained could be dropped from the label. I am not totally convinced that this is true if we adopt a non-trained eye diagram for active cables operating at 12G. Trained in the label may provide an easy distinction between these two different 12G requirements.

Alvin and Kevin will work together to get the updates made in the initial SAS-3 draft.

5.16 SAS PHY: SAS-3 Annotated SAS-3 Electrical specification (11-221r6) (11-418r1) [Gagnon]

12nF cap stays for 12Gbps at this point. Why change? Dell and HP said they have been looking at how to make PCIe compatible with the SAS coupling capacitor differences and it can be resolved on the host side. No details were given to the general group.

Should the reference receiver be described as RJ and TJ instead of DFE taps?

5.14 SAS PHY: End-to-End Compliance Methodology and Specification (11-416r1) [Gagnon]

This proposal looks at the TxRx connection section in dealing with the wording associated with cabling and how it is affected by the end-to-end approach.

Change probe point to ER in the receiver description?

Maybe include informative usage models, but not burden the standard with too many particular cases. The end-to-end model allows this.

With DFE allowed at 75% coefficient, what is the error propagation possibility? PMC had looked at this at 6Gbps with the 3 tap and found the 50% value acceptable

5.15 SAS PHY: SAS-3 Transmitter Equalization Compliance Specification (11-417r1) [Gagnon]

This proposal looks at the transmitter specification with relation to the at the die compliance point and provides a normalized specification approach to the values. Some discussion clarified what “normal” means. The standard should be clear to indicate what normal means so that there will not be confusion about this state.

6. SFF-related

Per the discussion from the SFF SSWG on Monday, Mr. Cox was asked if he would consider changing 11-093 (MultiLink proposal) to conform with SFF-8639. The response was that based on the testing his company has conducted thus far and the challenges of the SAS 12G signal characteristics, there is concern that the “single ground between links” introduces too much noise in a system that is trying to gain as much margin as possible. There are conflicting reports on one ground versus two, with the majority indicating that noise introduced by two aggressors with the single ground separation between the victim and aggressors increases the noise level to above -35dB. The discussion will continue in SFF.

7. Review of Recommendations

The phy group recommends 11-378r0 as revised (11-378r1) to be included in SPL-2 (unanimous).

8. Meeting Schedule

Next conference call:

September 29, 2011 10:00 am CDT

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WEBEX information:

Topic: SAS PHY WG
Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011
Time: 10:00 am, Central Daylight Time (Chicago, GMT-05:00)
Meeting Number: 826 515 680
Meeting Password: newsas

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