American Megatrends Introducing MegaRAC MG9087

American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), in BIOS and computing, introduced the latest addition to its line of backplane controllers: the MegaRAC MG9087.

It is a low-cost, small, single-chip solution for use on SAS and SATA backplanes. Intended as a replacement for the MegaRAC 9083 backplane controller, it can support up to 8 drives per backplane, a total of up to 32 SAS/SATA drives in cascaded controllers and provides drive activity, fail/rebuild and locate LEDs for each drive.

The MegaRAC MG9087 helps optimize backplane layout with the latest enclosure management technologies. It can be utilized in a multitude of backplane designs, managing LEDs in a variety of configurations, with pre-configured patterns available directly from AMI. It supports protocols including USB, SGPIO specification SFF-8485 and SES-2 for LED management and IBPI specification SFF-8489 – with no firmware or programming required. USB support and register-based access to the BMC is provided through SMBUS.

Integrated and space-optimized in a RoHS/WEEE-compliant design, the chip features an integrated internal oscillator and temperature sensor. Measuring only 9 x 9 mm in a TQFP-48 package, the MegaRAC MG9078 also does not require the plethora of components that typically drive backplane costs up, such as an external crystal, Flash memory, Power-On Reset (POR) chip, temperature sensor, regulator, EEPROM, LED Driver, FRU or transceivers. This means savings in the design and configuration of a project; in addition, reducing the number of components on the backplane makes for simpler and cleaner designs, improving time to market. Developers can further improve TTM by utilizing AMI’s 971/972 development boards, also available now directly through AMI.

Finally, an USB 2.0 utility provides status monitoring, diagnostics and firmware upgrade independent of the system BMC controller. Diagnostics and firmware tools are available for Microsoft Windows 32-bit and 64-bit versions, Linux, UEFI and DOS, giving developers and designers the support they need for effective, cost-saving designs.

American Megatrends President and CEO S. Shankar commented: "Because the MegaRAC MG9087 is a true single-chip solution, none of the usual add-on components such as crystal, EEPROM, LED driver, temperature sensor, and the like are needed. This saves manufacturers money and contributes to the robustness and long life of the backplane as there are fewer points of failure. This is just another way that AMI holds the interest of its customers to heart, by always searching for ways to save them money in development and time to market."