SerialATA with Virtex-II Pro

I've got a dev.board from Digilent (XUPV2P, [1]) with an Xilinx 
Virtex-II Pro (XC2VP30, to be exact). I've been reading up and it seems
that most say it's impossible to implement SerialATA with this, even
with additional logic?  My plan was to use this device as a 
"snoop-device":
- One connection to a PC motherboard
- One connection to a DVD/HDD
- Implement the ability to log traffic
- Implement correct forwarding between the two so that they both think
  everything is like if they were connected directly to eachother.

Is this really impossible with this FPGA, or is it possible with the right
additional logic (I was thinking of connecting this additional logic
to the SATA-ports on the devkit)?

In advance, thanks!

-- 
Thomas

xilinx rocketio is not fully SATA compliant so the SATA sockets on
ML300 and XUPV2P are just someones

"wishfull thinking.." !

on the ML300 I did someting useful with the SATA connector, namly I did
take a SATA cable cut it half, soldered a buzzer onto it, then plugged
into SATA connector on ML300 and programmed the rocketIO on the ML300
to make an audiable

BEEP BEEEEP BEEP

pretty expesive way of making BEEP (4600 USD !!)

you can do the same on your board, for less money :)

ok, jokes beside I have implemented a SATA OOB circuitry with NO
external circuitry with V2Pro rocketio
it worked with some Silicon image SATA bridge, eg i monitored the link
to come up
eg the in band signalling started and MGT got locked

but--- for you best advice

just forget those SATA sockets!!! (unless you want to make a BEEP)

Antti

Do you recommend the Digilent board? I want to practice my skills on
high speed comms using this board and also want a flexibility to work
on some algorithms like MPEG etc..

Cheers
Paul

the V2VP30 board for the uni price?
sure !!
that price is below component self cost !!!

just done excpect find nice and easy workin SATA solution for that
board (or in that matter any V2P board)

antti

The SATA connectors are useful for Board-to-Board communication using
the Aurora protocol.  

The "Using High Speed Serial MGTs with the Aurora IP" Quickstart at
http://www.xilinx.com/univ/xupv2p.html is a good place to start.

Paul

Antti wrote:
> 
> xilinx rocketio is not fully SATA compliant so the SATA sockets on
> ML300 and XUPV2P are just someones
> 
> "wishfull thinking.." !
> 
> on the ML300 I did someting useful with the SATA connector, namly I did
> take a SATA cable cut it half, soldered a buzzer onto it, then plugged
> into SATA connector on ML300 and programmed the rocketIO on the ML300
> to make an audiable
> 
> BEEP BEEEEP BEEP
> 
> pretty expesive way of making BEEP (4600 USD !!)
> 
> you can do the same on your board, for less money :)
> 
> ok, jokes beside I have implemented a SATA OOB circuitry with NO
> external circuitry with V2Pro rocketio
> it worked with some Silicon image SATA bridge, eg i monitored the link
> to come up
> eg the in band signalling started and MGT got locked
> 
> but--- for you best advice
> 
> just forget those SATA sockets!!! (unless you want to make a BEEP)
> 
> Antti

sure they can be used for any non-SATA protocol you can imagine, be it
Aurora or something else.

but having SATA connectors on board is very misleading as people will
think the SATA connectos could be used for SATA !!!

Antti

Antti <Antti.Lukats@xilant.com> wrote:
> ok, jokes beside I have implemented a SATA OOB circuitry with NO
> external circuitry with V2Pro rocketio
> it worked with some Silicon image SATA bridge, eg i monitored the link
> to come up
> eg the in band signalling started and MGT got locked

I read somewhere that using another serdes-IC would do the trick 
with the V2Pro?  Or are you saying that creating a fully 
SATA-compatible datalogger just isn't doable? Another thing is the 
ability to connect a SATA-device to the Virtex-II Pro for 
use with linux running on the embedded PowerPC-core.


-- 
Thomas

almost everything is doable. the question is what is reasonable.

you could be lucky and get v2pro serdes working with SATA too with some
limitations and with huge amount of work.

as of using external SATA PHY well that would work, but the problem is
that SATA PHY is pretty much not available at all, you are welcome to
try find one, but I am 99.99% sure you will not get any. OK, that was
situation a year ago, maybe its little easier today.

sure using v2pro serders and ppc-linux would realy COOL, too bad it
doesnt work out that way :(

Antti

Antti <Antti.Lukats@xilant.com> wrote:
> as of using external SATA PHY well that would work, but the problem is
> that SATA PHY is pretty much not available at all, you are welcome to
> try find one, but I am 99.99% sure you will not get any. OK, that was
> situation a year ago, maybe its little easier today.

None of these would work? 
* http://www.siliconimage.com/products/productfamily.aspx?id=3
* http://www.taracom.net/products.html

-- 
Thomas

sure they would, but have you tried to purchase them !?

Antti