ASMedia Incorporates Silicon Image Storage Processor

Silicon Image, Inc. and ASMedia Technology, Inc., provider of USB3.0 storage series of integrated circuits (ICs) headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, announced that Silicon Image’s SiI5923 SteelVine technology-based storage processor is integrated into a reference design for ASMedia’s ASM1051 single-chip solution to bridge USB3.0 to Serial ATA (SATA) Gen2. ASMedia’s SuperSpeed USB3.0 chip leveraging SteelVine storage technology features over 275MB (megabytes) per second sustained performance using two 3GB (gigabyte) drives to enable increased performance of USB 3.0 enclosures.

“Today’s consumers desire the ability to copy and backup large data files quickly and securely, and the ASM1051 chip has demonstrated exceptional electrical performance and stability in addition to low-power consumption,” said Chewei Lin, CEO of ASMedia Technology, Inc. “Silicon Image’s SiI5923 storage processor has helped us meet our performance requirements to support faster and more efficient data transfer for next-generation USB 3.0 enclosures.”

“The SiI5923 SteelVine Series 3 Core storage processor, which we introduced in June 2009 doubles the read/write performance of our customers’ designs versus their previous-generation designs,” said Tim Vehling, vice president of worldwide marketing at Silicon Image, Inc. “Enclosure manufacturers can operate the SiI5923 in RAID0, RAID1 or JBOD modes to maximize performance, reliability and power efficiency while reducing costs. We are pleased that ASMedia selected our processor in their reference design and we look forward to working closely with them in the future.”

The SiI5923 SteelVine Series 3 Core storage processor delivers a zero-configuration design with no software support required, enabling easy-to-use enclosures.

Key features of the SiI5923 include:

• Storage offload engine (100 percent)
• eSATA-capable device ports
• RAID0 low latency for high performance
• RAID1 implementation offers ease-of-use and performance: ‘RAID1-later’ allows the user to add redundancy with an extra drive, when needed; RAID1 performance (racing) for faster storage; Easy to use auto mirror/failover; Automatic sector recovery extends RAID1 lifespan
• High-performance hardware acceleration