Method and system for controlling a hard disk drive using a multimediacard physical interface
View Patent ↗A method and system for data transfer between a sector-oriented mass storage medium and a host device capable of interfacing with a byte-oriented storage medium using an HS-MMC physical interface in the host device. Existing MMC commands such as FAST_IO command can be used to pass the control data to the sector-oriented mass storage medium and also to read the status of that medium. It is possible to use the GEN_CMD command for data transfer, for example. Because the command in data transfer is similar to ATA protocol, ATA write commands and ATA read commands can also be used for data transfer to and from the sector-oriented mass storage medium.
1. A method comprising:
using at least a first selected command for a byte-oriented memory device to set up an environment in a sector-oriented storage medium; and
transferring payload data between the byte-oriented memory device and the sector-oriented storage medium using a second selected command, wherein the second selected command is selected from commands for the byte oriented memory device or commands for the sector-oriented storage medium.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said at least first selected command is configured to pass control data to an application specific register in the sector-oriented storage medium and to read a status from the application specific register in the sector-oriented storage medium, wherein the passing of control data and the reading of the status are carried out in an 8-bit fashion.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said at least first selected command is configured for accessing the application specific register.
4. The method of claim 2 , wherein said second selected command is configured for transferring the payload data without specifying an address for said transferring.
5. The method of claim 3 , wherein said second selected command is configured for transferring the payload data without specifying an address for said transferring.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said at least first selected command comprises: a command to set up a block length; and a command to initiate a write procedure so as to write data in said block length to the sector-oriented storage medium.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein said command to set up the block length is a SET_BLOCKLEN command and said command to initiate the write procedure is a WRITE_BLOCK command.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sector-oriented storage medium has a plurality of task file registers, said method further comprising
sending a command from the byte-oriented memory device to the sector-oriented storage medium for filling the task file registers.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second command is CMD61 command.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second command is selected from a plurality of commands in accordance with advanced technology attachment (ATA) standard, the commands including CMD11, CMD18 for reading data from the sector-oriented storage medium and CMD20, CMD25 for writing data to the sector-oriented storage medium.
11. A storage module comprising:
a sector-oriented storage medium; and
an interface module operatively connected to the sector-oriented storage medium;
said interface module comprising:
a sector-oriented storage medium control module;
a byte-oriented storage medium interface; and
a control logic module connected between the byte-oriented storage medium interface and the sector-oriented storage medium control module, wherein the byte-oriented storage medium interface is adapted to receive a plurality of commands from a host device and wherein the commands comprise at least a first command to set up an environment in the sector-oriented storage medium, and a second command to transfer payload data between the host device and the sector-oriented storage medium through the control logic module and the sector-oriented storage medium control module.
12. The storage module of claim 11 , wherein said at least first command is configured to pass control data to an application specific register in the sector-oriented storage medium and to read a status from the application specific register in the sector-oriented storage medium, wherein the passing of control data and the reading of the status are carried out in an 8-bit fashion.
13. The storage module of claim 12 , wherein said at least first selected command is configured for accessing an application specific register.
14. The storage module of claim 12 , wherein said second selected command is configured for transferring the payload data without specifying an address for said transferring.
15. The storage medium of claim 13 , wherein said second selected command is configured for transferring the payload data without specifying an address for said transferring.
16. The storage medium of claim 11 , wherein said at least first selected command comprises:
a command to set up a block length; and a command to initiate a write procedure so as to write data in said block length to the sector-oriented storage medium.
17. The storage medium of claim 16 , wherein said command to set up the block length is a SET_BLOCKLEN command and said command to initiate the write procedure is a WRITE_BLOCK command.
18. The storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the second command is CMD61 command.
19. The storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the second command is selected from a plurality of commands in accordance with advanced technology attachment (ATA) standard, the commands including CMD11, CMD18 for reading data from the sector-oriented storage medium and CMD20, CMD25 for writing data to the sector-oriented storage medium.
20. A data transfer system comprising:
a host device adapted to receive a byte-oriented memory device;
a sector-oriented storage medium; and
a bus connected between the host device and the sector-oriented storage medium, wherein the sector-oriented storage medium has an interface module adapted to receive a plurality of commands from the host device through the bus, and wherein the commands comprise at least a first command to set up an environment in the sector-oriented storage medium, and a second command to transfer payload data between the byte-oriented memory device and the sector-oriented storage medium through the bus.
21. The data transfer system of claim 20 , wherein said at least first command is used to pass control data to an application specific register in the sector-oriented storage medium and to read a status from the application specific register in the sector-oriented storage medium, wherein the passing of control data and the reading of the status are carried out in a 8-bit fashion.
22. The data transfer system of claim 21 , wherein said at least first selected command is configured for accessing an application specific register.
23. The data transfer system of claim 21 , wherein said second selected command is configured for transferring the payload data without specifying an address for said transferring.
24. The data transfer system of claim 22 , wherein said second selected command is configured for transferring the payload data without specifying an address for said transferring.
25. The data transfer system of claim 20 , wherein said at least first selected command comprises:
a command to set up a block length; and a command to initiate a write procedure so as to write data in said block length to the sector-oriented storage medium.
26. The data transfer system of claim 25 , wherein said command to set up the block length is a SET_BLOCKLEN command and said command to initiate the write procedure is a WRITE_BLOCK command.