CE-ATA - the disk drive interface of future handhelds

CE-ATA, the storage interface for next-generation handhelds and portable consumer electronics devices, has reached a number of milestones that underscore progress made with the specification and the industry since the initiative was launched at the Intel Developer Forum in September.

The most recent development, announced at CES, is an arrangement between the CE-ATA Promoter Group and the MultiMediaCard Association (MMCA), the organization that promotes the worldwide adoption of a compact, removable standard for storing and retrieving digital information in small, low-power devices. The two groups will collaborate to ensure that the technologies they support are complimentary and address the needs of the storage industry in providing an interface that is ideally suited to portable consumer applications.

No disk drive interface exists today that is tailored to the needs of the handheld and CE market segments. CE-ATA addresses this deficiency. Members are jointly defining a standard interface for small form factor disk drives that addresses requirements inherent to such small devices, including low pin count, low voltage, power efficiency, cost effectiveness and integration efficiency.

Another significant milestone for CE-ATA at CES is the completion and distribution of a release candidate of the core protocol specification to CE-ATA members. The final 1.0 spec is on track to be ratified and published in the first half of this year as originally committed at the launch of the initiative. The first end products supporting the new technology could be available as early as late 2005.