PCI-EXPRESS SIL 3132 COMPATIBILE WITH OPTICAL DRIVES.

This article provides information on the SATALink SiI 3132 PCI-Express incorporated to Serial ATA (SATA) II Host controller from Silicon Image Inc., a company that designs, develops and markets multi-gigabit semiconductor and system solutions for a variety of communications applications demanding high-bandwidth capability headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The Sil 3132 offers full advanced SATA functionality normally limited to server-class systems, including 3 Gb/s SATA data transfer rates. Native Command Queuing, support for port multipliers with Frame Information Structure-based switching and support for ATAPI commands, making it compatible with optical drives such as CD-ROM and DVD+/-RWS. All of this advanced functionality is packed into a small 10x10 mm package. Furthermore, the Sil 3132 offers advanced Redundant Array of Independent Disks capability through Silicon Image's SATARaid software management utility, which comes bundled with the chip. The SiI 3132 also provides added benefits as a port multiplier-aware host when connected to Silicon Image's SteelVine architecture. According to DigiTimes, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and ECS together are forecasted to ship more than 102 million motherboards in 2005.