LSI Delivers 65nm Read Channel SoC to Seagate

LSI Corporation and Seagate Technology LLC announced the delivery of a complex integrated read channel technology for Seagate’s latest hard disk drive (HDD) products. Together, the companies have enabled the industry’s first hard disk drives with low-density parity check (LDPC) read channel in 65nm process system-on-chip (SoC) technology.

The co-development effort combines Seagate LDPC digital back-end read channel and hard drive controller IP with LSI analog front-end read channel (RC) and physical layer (PHY) technology. The combined LDPC read channel has been incorporated into high-capacity SoC solutions that enable new levels of performance and storage capacity for leading-edge Seagate HDDs.

"The long-standing relationship between Seagate and LSI has delivered innovative, best-in-class solutions over many technology generations," said Cecil Macgregor, vice president of VLSI development, Seagate Technology. "We continue this trend with the delivery of innovative HDDs based on the industry’s first 65nm SoC utilizing LDPC read channel technology."  

"Enabling faster, higher-capacity disk drives that consume less power is essential to end users, server and storage providers and HDD manufacturers," said Phil Brace, senior vice president and general manager, Storage Peripherals Division, LSI. "Together, LSI and Seagate are driving areal density improvements and raising the bar for HDD capacity and performance."

Leveraging LSI custom integration expertise, the SoCs will include LSI TrueStore RC8000 and PHY8000 series technology with the Seagate LDPC read channel, hard disk controller IP and firmware, as well as an integrated ARM Cortex-R4 processor from LSI. The TrueStore PHY series provides Seagate with integrated interface solutions for HDD SoC designs that are compatible with 6Gb/s SAS, 6Gb/s SATA and 4.25Gb/s Fibre Channel protocols.

The 65nm hard disk drive SoC with integrated LDPC read channel technology is available now in Seagate HDDs.