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PMod to add SATA to Digilent Nexys A7-100T?


Ollonii

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Dear Friends,

I am a rank beginner with FPGAs - when I did my MScEE, Intel had just developed the 80286 and I was working on systems using a pre-release version of it! Life has taken me away from computer design but, now that I'm retired, I'd like to implement some of the ideas I have. But oh how things have changed!

One of the first things I'd like to work on involves physical control of disk drives (and later, SSDs). I figure I'll start by replicating one of the open-source SATA cores. To begin, I've purchased a Digilent Nexys A7-100T but, of course, it has no SATA connectors. Is there an easy way to add one (or two) to this board? I'd have thought that was a common need but I can't find anything.

Related to this, I'll expose my lack of knowledge by asking about the board choice. I selected Xilinx because of their market share and history, Digilent because of their support, and Artix7 because it's not likely to become obsolete in a year or two and it appears to have plenty of horsepower for the things I'd like to try. I have no idea where Zynq7000 might fall, here. Are these reason sound, in your experience?

Thanks for any input. I'm excited to be back working on design again although I think there might be a *steep* learning curve ahead.

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Hi @Ollonii,

There will likely never be a SATA based Pmod, mostly because you won't be able to get the speeds you need out of Pmod ports, particularly on the Nexys A7 where all of the Pmod ports have singled ended pins and are not differentially paired; there is an extensive thread about this in the Project Vault here, https://forum.digilentinc.com/topic/2898-differential-pmod-challenge/. Alternatively, there are some different threads that might be of interest to you here and here.

Thanks,
JColvin

 

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