Ulink Announces Suites for SATA/ATA and PCIe AHCI SSD Testing and Validation

ULINK Technology, Inc. announced a set of new test suites for SATA and PCIe AHCI SSD testing and validation.

The release of test suites is part of an ongoing effort to support new device interfaces and to create additional test features for the SSD manufacturers.

This is their first major release since their flagship product DriveMaster 2012 was introduced last October. The new suites make use of many new features supported by DM 2012 to form a complete testing utility for today’s SSD development and validation needs.

ULINK released two test suites for SATA/ATA and PCIe this time: SATA/ATA Protocol Test Suite (v3.8) and SATA/ATA Regression Test Suite (v3.0).

In addition to supporting SATA/ATA, both suites now support PCIe AHCI SSD devices (using ULINK’s PCIe SSD Power Platform H/W). The Protocol Test Suite is for validation the SATA/ATA command protocol including NCQ and DSM TRIM commands. The Regression Test Suite is for validation the reliability of the SSD device under continuous stress and power cycles. The Suite also validates the device endurance rating using JEDEC’s client and enterprise endurance rating workload.

The new test suites deliver test sequences through the DriveMaster 2012 AHCI device driver to test the entire SATA and T13 ATA command sets. ULINK’s testing method, coupled with its years of experience in the AHCI interface programming, has made the test suites an effective and comprehensive test tool for the new PCIe AHCI devices.

"ULINK’s DriveMaster SATA Pro is based on the AHCI interface. It has been used in the SATA-IO Digital Device and the previous SATA/ATA test suites. Support for PCIe AHCI SSD testing is a natural addition to the DriveMaster’s testing environment," said Joseph Chen, VP of engineering at ULINK Technology.

"The new test suite provides detailed functionality and reliability testing for SSD devices," Edwin Kuo, director of sales and marketing at ULINK, adds. "PCIe AHCI SSD is making a presence in the market due to its promise of higher performance. We are committed to providing our customers the best tool for development and qualification of SSD storage."

DriveMaster is a ULINK product that supports SATA and SAS product testing. The software is approved for use in the SATA-IO compliance test. ULINK has implemented tests required by SATA-IO for the Device Digital Test, Port Multiplier (PM) Digital Test, and Host Digital Test. These are used for validating hardware and software implementations for any product to carry the SATA-IO logo.