Technical Product Specification

Functional Architecture Intel® Server Board S1400FP TPS
30 Intel order number G64246-003 Revision 2.0
3.3.3
Serial ATA (SATA) Controller
The C600 chipset has two integrated SATA host controllers that support independent DMA
operation on up to six ports and supports data transfer rates of up to 6.0 Gb/s (600 MB/s) on up
to two ports (Port 0 and 1 Only) while all ports support rates up to 3.0 Gb/s (300 MB/s) and up to
1.5 Gb/s (150 MB/s). The SATA controller contains two modes of operation – a legacy mode
using I/O space, and an AHCI mode using memory space. Software that uses legacy mode will
not have AHCI capabilities. The C600 chipset supports the Serial ATA Specification, Revision
3.0. The C600 also supports several optional sections of the Serial ATA II: Extensions to Serial
ATA 1.0 Specification, Revision 1.0 (AHCI support is required for some elements).
3.3.4
AHCI
The C600 chipset provides hardware support for Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), a
standardized programming interface for SATA host controllers. Platforms supporting AHCI may
take advantage of performance features such as no master/slave designation for SATA
devices—each device is treated as a master—and hardware assisted native command queuing.
AHCI also provides usability enhancements such as Hot-Plug. AHCI requires appropriate
software support (for example, an AHCI driver) and for some features, hardware support in the
SATA device or additional platform hardware.
3.3.5
Rapid Storage Technology
The C600 chipset provides support for Intel
®
Rapid Storage Technology, providing both AHCI
(see above for details on AHCI) and integrated RAID functionality. The industry-leading RAID
capability provides high-performance RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 functionality on up to 6 SATA ports of
the C600 chipset. Matrix RAID support is provided to allow multiple RAID levels to be combined
on a single set of hard drives, such as RAID 0 and RAID 1 on two disks. Other RAID features
include hot-spare support, SMART alerting, and RAID 0 auto replace. Software components
include an Option ROM for pre-boot configuration and boot functionality, a Microsoft Windows*
compatible driver, and a user interface for configuration and management of the RAID capability
of the C600 chipset.
3.3.6
PCI Interface
The C600 chipset PCI interface provides a 33 MHz, Revision 2.3 implementation. The C600
chipset integrates a PCI arbiter that supports up to four external PCI bus masters in addition to
the internal C600 chipset requests. This allows for combinations of up to four PCI down devices
and PCI slots.
3.3.7
Low Pin Count (LPC) Interface
The C600 chipset implements an LPC Interface as described in the LPC 1.1 Specification. The
Low Pin Count (LPC) bridge function of the C600 resides in PCI Device 31: Function 0. In
addition to the LPC bridge interface function, D31:F0 contains other functional units including
DMA, interrupt controllers, timers, power management, system management, GPIO, and RTC.