ST, APT codevelop Serial ATA chips

STMicroelectronics is entering into a service and license agreement with APT Technologies to develop chip-level solutions for Serial ATA, the new interface standard for PCs, workstations, servers and mass-storage peripheral devices. Serial ATA will be adopted in a wide range of applications such as HDD, DVD, and removable storage.

Under the agreement, the two companies are expected to provide stand-alone and integrated Serial ATA 1.5Gbps and 3Gbps solutions. The agreement is said to leverage ST's expertise in developing and producing PHY devices and complex SoCs and APT's expertise in Serial ATA technology.