Logos on the Way For SATA Certified Devices

BEAVERTON, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of SATA technology, today announced the formal launch of its certified logo program. The logo program will enable devices that pass SATA-IO interoperability testing to bear the SATA certified logos, indicating adherence to the SATA specifications.

With the advent of the logo program, all products achieving SATA-IO Integrators List status will be able to use the SATA certified logos on their sales collateral, product packaging and other marketing materials. Devices on the Integrators List have undergone extensive testing for specification compliance, thereby assuring a high level of interoperability with other certified devices. The addition of the certified logo to this process provides another level of awareness of SATA technology within the industry and enables manufacturers to quickly and easily identify SATA certified products.

“Implementing a certified logo program is an important part of enabling interoperability among SATA devices in the marketplace,” said Knut Grimsrud, SATA-IO President and Intel Fellow. “As the industry moves towards devices operating at higher speeds, the certification process becomes increasingly critical for ensuring high-quality product performance.”

The newly established logo program comes at a time when market adoption of SATA technology is at an all-time high. According to analyst firm IDC, more than 650 million SATA hard drives have shipped to date, and three quarters of new desktop and mobile systems shipped in 2007 included SATA hard drives. The technology is also being adopted by other types of devices, including optical disk drives, solid state drives, servers and external storage systems. Membership growth within SATA-IO mirrors the high market adoption. The organization currently boasts more than 200 members actively working to promote and develop SATA technology.

SATA-IO is also finalizing work on its SATA Revision 3.0 specification, which will increase the technology’s data transfer speeds to six gigabits per second (6Gb/s). This new specification will double the transfer speed of current SATA technology, enabling end-users to move large amounts of data at a very high rate. The organization expects to release SATA Revision 3.0 before the end of 2008.

For more information on current SATA-IO activities, visit booth #326 at the Intel Developer Forum.

About SATA-IO

Formed in September 2004, the SATA-IO is the International Organization that owns and manages Serial ATA specifications as open industry standards. The organization defines and implements Serial ATA storage specifications as the industry’s storage needs evolve. It is dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of the SATA technology by maintaining the specifications, promoting and marketing the benefits of the technology and creating future interface features and specifications that carry storage into the next decade. Additional information about the organization, its more than 200 participating companies and membership is available at www.sata-io.org.