Evatronix SDIO-HOST Controller compliments the company's line of memory controllers.

A fully SDIO-compliant host controller provides SoC designers with comprehensive support for memory cards, wireless networking and a range of other SDIO applications.

Gliwice & Bielsko-Biala, Poland, April 21, 2008 – The silicon Intellectual Property (IP) provider, Evatronix SA, has announced today, the launching of a new SDIO-HOST Controller IP core to handle MMC and SDIO type cards and devices.

The SDIO-HOST Controller is fully compatible with SD Memory version 2.00, SDIO version 2.00 and MMC version 3.31 protocols. The register set complies with SDIO Host Specification ver. 1.00 and supports an optional DMA controller as well. Up to 4 card interfaces (slots) can be utilized in complex systems, through support of the IP core's variable configuration. The controller supports a large spectrum of SDIO applications - numerous memory cards, wireless networking enhancements like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, as well as other SDIO-based solutions such as Global Positioning Systems, cameras or TV tuners - made possible by the use of independent clocks and configurations for each slot.

The SDIO-HOST core implements two separate bus interfaces: Standard Register Set (slave) and DMA Controller (master), both featuring either standard AMBA AHB or generic 8/16/32-bit communication for compatibility with a wide range of system interconnections. The DMA Controller is enhanced by a Programmable Burst Length option, which allows flexible internal bus utilization. Data buffering is conducted by a configurable 32-bit FIFO memory with Single- or Dual-Port RAM support. Overall SDIO-HOST Controller performance results in 50 MHz clock speed support and a throughput of 200 Mbps - industry top values.

“With more and more appliances making use of SDIO interface standard, a state-of-the-art SDIO Host Controller is definitely something that SoC designers need to integrate into their chips,” stated Wojciech Sakowski, Evatronix President. “This IP core, together with our NAND Flash and Parallel ATA controllers, brings us one step closer to becoming complete memory and storage controller providers, our goal for this year. ”

“Staying in step with the constantly evolving market also means keeping in accordance with pertinent specifications,” added Tomasz Kowalczyk, Product Line Manager at Evatronix.“Our SD Card Association membership allows us to equip the IP core with the latest advances, and therefore support the widest possible range of SDIO-enabled devices.”

The core comes with an SDIO Software Driver that further assists the use of an SDIO-HOST Controller in the customer's application. Initialization, bus width and clock frequency settings, sending and receiving of commands as well as SDIO interrupt handling – all these functions can be applied to any SDIO device.

Availability and customization options

The SDIO-HOST Controller IP core is available for licensing now. The standard core configuration includes the following options: support for up to 4 SDIO independent slots, DMA engine enabling, Single- or Dual-Port buffer RAM and variable FIFO sizes. While standard configuration of the controllers covers a variety of applications, our engineering team is ready to assist customers in conforming the controller's features to fit their specific design needs or optimization for a particular technology.

An SDIO-HOST Controller and Evatronix development board combination, featuring a C68000-AHB IP core, is available as a demo application upon request.