ZPODD hardware requirements

This topic describes Zero Power Optical Disk Drive (ZPODD) hardware requirements.

This information applies to the following operating systems:

  • Windows 8
  • Windows Server 2012

Optical device requirements

The SATA interface to the ODD must conform to the Zero Power Slimline ODD SATA Specification (SATA30_TPR_C102_V16). This specification modifies the existing SATA slimline connector pin assignment to allow a device to notify the host that it requires Device Attention (DA).

A ZPODD-capable ODD must support the new field in the IDENTIFY_PACKET_DEVICE response data indicating if DA is supported by the device.

IDENTIFY PACKET DEVICE (from SATA30_TPR_C102_V16):

Word 77 Optional/Mandatory Fixed/Volatile Serial ATA additional capabilities
O R 15-6 Reserved
O F 5 Supports host environment detect
O F 4 Supports Device Attention on slimline connected device
O V 3-1 Coded value indicating current negotiated Serial ATA signal speed
O F 0 Shall be cleared to 0

 

Bit 4, when set to 1, indicates that the device supports Device Attention capability in the slim-line connector. Devices that do not support Device Attention on their slimline connector shall set this bit to 0.

Platform requirements

The host platform must connect the ODD device’s DA signal to a general purpose I/O pin. For PC form factors, this is one of the GPEx_STS bits in the ACPI Fixed Hardware register interface (Section 4.7.4 of the ACPI Specification). For system-on-a-chip (SOC)-based form factors, this is any GPIO pin, as long as that pin is exposed by a GPIO driver. In addition, the DA signal and the device electronics must be powered from separate power resources, with the resource for the device electronics controllable by firmware.

ZPODD platform and driver design guidelines for Windows 8

 

 

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