SATA

The SATA port on the ECPIX-5 is connected to the GTP3 SERDES from the ECP5.

Use cases

As a SATA host

The SATA port on the ECPIX-5 was mainly intended for SATA host operation. Its RX and TX differential pairs are AC coupled, as required by the SATA specification.

As a SATA device

As SATA devices and hosts use the same connector, it is possible to use an ECPIX-5 as a SATA device to emulate a hard drive, an SSD or an optical driver for instance.

However operating the ECPIX-5 as a SATA device may require some hardware modifications: the AC coupling capacitors might need to be replaced with a shunt resistor if double AC coupling is undesired.

As a general purpose SERDES

SATA connectors are fantastic for thinkering with SERDES: the connectors are cheap enough and widely available, the cables are also very cheap and adequate for high speed signals and they have a locking mechanism.

The SATA lines on ECPIX-5 are AC coupled, but by soldering 0402 jumpers in place of C112/C113 you can directly access the ECP5 SERDES.

Pinout

SATA pin	FPGA pin	Description
TXP	AD16	FPGA to SATA transmit line (Positive)
TXN	AD17	FPGA to SATA transmit line (Negative)
RXP	AF15	SATA to FPGA receive line (Positive)
RXN	AF16	SATA to FPGA receive line (Negative)