SATA group goes international
New organisation to expand membership
Intel has rubber-stamped the future of the high-speed Serial-ATA (SATA) PC hard-drive technology by announcing the formation of the SATA International Organisation (SATA-IO).
SATA-IO will replace SATA II, the previous SATA group. According to Intel, this marks the transition of the SATA steering group into a formal industry association.
The group plans to expand membership to include system builders, more optical storage vendors, storage controller and hard drive vendors, storage semiconductor designers and computer technology designers. The announcements were made at last week's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco.
The new 'international' status reflects the dominance of the high-speed hard drive technology, with data transfer speeds hitting 3Gbps in the latest specification.
"Our transformation to SATA-IO shows our members' dedication to the future of this technology," said Knut Grimsrud, chairman of the SATA-IO.
"The new organisational structure is long-term and self-sustaining, and empowers the SATA community to build a mighty and mature market for SATA offerings.
"SATA-IO will continue to maintain specifications, promote the benefits of the technology, foster quality and interoperability in products, and define new SATA technology and interface speeds that carry the storage industry into the next decade."
Joni Clark, marketing chairwoman at the SATA-IO, said: "Many of the SATA-IO member firms have begun development based on the 3Gbps and external SATA specifications. It's encouraging to show these advances for the first time at IDF."
In related news, Intel and a group of storage and consumer electronics firms are expected to unveil CE-ATA, a derivative of the ATA storage specification for Windows CE-based mobile devices. The move is aimed at giving hand-helds data storage and transfer performance on a par with that found in PCs and notebooks.