JPH03189719A - Disk control lsi, storage device and information processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To transfer data at high speed by providing a host interface, a disk interface which performs the input/output of stored data in parallel to a storage disk, and a means which controls the transfer of data between both interfaces. CONSTITUTION:A host interface 2 is provided to perform the input/output of data for which a host device 1 has an access together with a disk interface 4 which performs the input/output of the stored data in parallel to a storage disk 10, and a means which control the transfer of data between both interfaces 2 and 4. Therefore the input/output of data stored in the disk 10 is carried out via the interface 4 in the form of the parallel data. At the same time, the transfer of data is carried out between both interfaces 2 and 4. Thus, it is possible to transfer of data on a disk device at high speed via a single LSI.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a storage device using a storage disk such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, or a magneto-optical disk, and particularly relates to an LSI for controlling the disk.

[Prior Art] FIG. 7 shows the configuration of a storage device using a conventional storage disk (hereinafter referred to as a disk device).

As illustrated, the disk device 210 includes a disk control device 8 and a disk drive device.

The disk drive device includes a code decoding circuit 6 that encodes data into a storage code on the disk and decodes the storage code, and a recording and reproducing circuit 7 that performs recording and reproducing to and from the storage disk. , host interface circuit 2 that interfaces with the host computer
．． It includes a disk control LSI 3 that controls the transfer of data accessed by the host computer, a buffer memory 4 that holds data sent and received from the host computer, and a microprocessor 5 that controls the entire system.

In the disk device described above, data transmission and reception between the disk control device and the disk drive device is performed using two types of serial data: read and write.

Therefore, a disk control LSI used in a disk control device has one serial data interface for reading and one for writing, and treats each data as serial data.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in recent years, disk devices employing a parallel recording method have been developed in order to increase the data transfer speed.

If this disk device is to be controlled using only one conventional disk control LSI, the data between the disk control LSI and the disk drive device must be serial data, and sufficient data transfer is required. It was not possible to increase the speed.

Furthermore, if an attempt is made to implement this using multiple disk control LSIs, the processing of the microprocessor that controls the disk control LSIs will become excessive, and the hardware will also become large-scale, making it difficult to make disk devices smaller and have larger capacities. There were problems in that it became difficult and increased costs.

The present invention can increase the data transfer speed of a disk device using one LSI. An object of the present invention is to provide a disk control LSI for a disk device that employs a parallel recording method.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a disk device capable of increasing data transfer speed, and an information processing system using the disk device.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a host interface for inputting and outputting data accessed by a host device;
A first disk control LSI is provided, characterized in that it has a disk interface for inputting and outputting storage data in parallel to and from a storage disk, and means for controlling data transfer between both interfaces.

In addition, in order to achieve the above purpose, a host interface that performs input/output of data accessed by a host device in parallel, a disk interface that performs human output of stored data in parallel to a storage disk, and a data exchange between both interfaces are provided. A means for controlling parallel transfer and a code for detecting errors in transferred data are obtained in units of parallel data, parallelized to the same number of bits as the transferred parallel data, and added to the transferred parallel data from the host interface to the disk interface. and means for detecting errors in the transferred data from a code for detecting errors in the transferred data added to the parallel data transferred from the disk interface to the host interface. 2 disk control LSf is provided.

In particular, the second disk control LSI is characterized in that a Reed-Solomon code is used as a code for detecting errors in the transferred data.

Preferably, each of the disk control LSIs includes means for outputting storage disk sector management information to be written to the storage disk in parallel by the number of bits of the transfer parallel data from the disk interface.

Additionally, the present invention provides a first disk device characterized by comprising a storage disk and the disk control LSI described above that controls parallel transfer of data to and from the storage disk.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention also provides a buffer memory that holds parallel data accessed by a host device, a disk control circuit that controls parallel transfer of data between the buffer memory and a storage disk, and a storage disk of the storage disk. A second disk device characterized by having an encoding/decoding circuit that encodes data into a recording code on a storage disk and decodes the recording code, and a storage disk that stores storage data in parallel. The present invention also provides an information processing system characterized by having the disk device and a host device that accesses the disk device.

As described above, the present invention parallelizes the data lines between the disk control LSI and the disk drive device. Furthermore, if there is a circuit that handles data serially at even one place inside the LSI, all of these internal circuits are configured in parallel with respect to data lines, since high speed performance is impaired.

Regardless of the LSI, if we were to describe the characteristics of the hardware configuration of the disk device, we would like to point out that the circuit that encodes the recording code to the disk drive device or decodes it when reading data (the host computer and the disk This corresponds to realizing all the parts (from the device interface) with circuits with a parallel configuration regarding the data lines.

[Function] According to the first disk control LSI according to the present invention, input/output of storage data of the storage disk is performed as parallel data through the disk interface. Also, data transfer between the host interface and disk interface is performed.

Further, according to the second disk control LSI of the present invention, data accessed by the host device is input/output in parallel at the host interface, parallel data stored in the storage disk is input/output in parallel at the disk interface, and , data between both interfaces is transferred in parallel. On the other hand, a code for detecting errors in transferred data is obtained in units of parallel data, parallelized to the same number of bits as the transferred parallel data,
Added to parallel data transferred from host interface to disk interface.

Furthermore, errors in the transferred data are detected from a code added to the parallel data transferred from the disk interface to the host interface for detecting errors in the transferred data.

Note that in this second disk control LSI, a read code is used as a code for detecting errors in the transferred data.
Preferably, Solomon codes are used.

Further, it is preferable that each of the disk control LSIs outputs storage disk sector management information to be written to the storage disk in parallel by the number of bits of the transfer parallel data from the disk interface.

Further, according to the first disk device according to the present invention, parallel transfer of data to and from the storage disk is controlled by the disk control LSI.

Further, according to the second disk device according to the present invention, the buffer memory holds parallel data accessed by the host device. Further, data transfer between the buffer memory and the storage disk is performed as parallel data by the disk control circuit. Also.

The encoding/decoding circuit encodes the data stored on the storage disk into a recording code on the storage disk and decodes the recording code.

Further, according to the information processing system according to the present invention, the host device accesses the disk device and performs the processing.

(Hereinafter, blank spaces) [Embodiment] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below by taking an information processing system equipped with a magnetic disk storage device as an example.

First, the storage format of the disk device according to this embodiment will be explained.

First, FIG. 8 shows a conventional storage format of a disk device for serially recording data.

As shown in the figure, the disk device records data on a magnetic disk in units of sectors 17, and each sector 17 contains data (DATA PIELD) 29 sent from the host computer 1.

Error correction code (DATA CHECK BYTES)
In addition to 30, information for managing sectors 17 must be written.These information include 15O (intersector gap) 2 inserted between each sector.
0, an address 18 for each sector, a synchronization pattern 28, etc. Writing this information is called formatting.

In the conventional case where data is recorded serially as shown above, sectors with a certain sector number exist as continuous areas on the disk, but in this embodiment, data is recorded in parallel, so the same Multiple sectors with sector numbers exist separately on the disk. These sectors must be administratively accessed simultaneously as one sector, so this must be taken into account when formatting.

FIG. 5 shows a storage format of a disk device for recording data in parallel according to this embodiment.

In this embodiment, as shown in the figure, DATAFE
ELD 29 and DATA CHECK BYTES 30
is a plurality of sectors 17a, b, c with the same sector number.
However, since the pro sync byte 27 and the sync pattern byte 28 are signals used for synchronizing data reading during recording and reproduction, if they are written separately, the data cannot be read. Also, l5
O (intersector gap) 20 a = c is required for each sector depending on its sector length. Therefore, this information is added independently to each sector on the disk.

With the above configuration, even in parallel storage of data,
Data can be played back correctly.

Note that in the configuration shown in FIG. 5, sectors 17a,
Only the data field 29 and the ECC byte 30 are written separately to b and c, but the address field 23.b in the address area. The address check byte 24 (see FIG. 8) is also used for each sector 17a, b,
It is also possible to distribute and write to c.

Next, the configuration of the disk device according to this embodiment will be explained.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a disk device according to this embodiment.

The disk device 10 includes a disk control device 8 and a disk drive device.

The disk drive device includes a code decoding circuit 6 that encodes data into a storage code on a disk and decodes the storage code, and recording and reproducing circuits 7a, 7b to 7h that performs recording and reproducing to and from a magnetic disk. . A magnetic head is connected to each recording/reproducing circuit, and each magnetic head has a
The same or different magnetic disks are accessed in parallel.

The disk control device 8 includes a host interface circuit 2 that serves as an interface with a host computer, a buffer memory 4 that holds data sent to and received from a disk control LSI 3 (to be described later) and a host computer, and a microprocessor 5 that takes charge of overall control.

During normal data writing, the disk drive device 9 writes parallel data received from the disk control LSI 3 to multiple sectors 1 on a formatted disk.
7a, b, and c (sectors with the same sector number, see FIG. 5) in parallel.

At this time, it is necessary to encode/decode the data into a recording code for recording on the disk, but in the case of a one-track system, this encoding/decoding circuit 6 continues to encode data in parallel with the disk control LSI.

The data is received and encoded/decoded in parallel (actually, there are many recording codes such as 2-7RLL codes and 1-7RLL codes whose circuit configuration is simpler if the parallel data is converted).

However, the encoding/decoding circuit 6 may include encoding/decoding circuits corresponding to the number of output data lines of the disk control LSI.

As described above, the disk device according to this embodiment stores data in parallel on the magnetic disk, but its configuration is different from the conventional disk device 8 (sixth disk) that stores data serially.
(see figure), the code decoding circuit 6 and the control LSI 3 are connected by a bus in order to transmit and receive data in parallel.

Structure of Disk LSI Next, the disk control LSI according to this embodiment will be explained.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the disk control LSI according to this embodiment.

The disk control LSI is the CPU interface section 12
, buffer controller section 13, host interface section 11. It is composed of a drive interface section 15, a format control section, and an ECC section 14.

The CPU interface section 12 is connected to the disk control device 18.
An interface circuit between the external microprocessor 5 and this LSI, which performs overall control, controls data and address transfer between the microprocessor 5 and this LSI.

The buffer controller unit 13 is a circuit that controls a buffer memory provided to absorb the difference in data transfer speed between the disk drive device 3 and the host computer 1. Disk drive installed! ! All data transfer between the computer 3 and the host computer 1 is performed via this buffer memory 4. Therefore, the data transfer controlled by the buffer controller section 13 requires at least two systems: disk drive device 3 - buffer memory 4, and buffer memory 4 - host computer 1. In addition, the microprocessor 5 and buffer memory 4 may also be present. Yes.

The host interface control unit 11 is a disk control LS
This is a circuit that controls data transfer between I3 and the host interface control circuit 2, and the host interface control circuit 2
Handles signals between the LSI and the disk control LSI.

The ECC section is a circuit that generates and decodes error correction codes to correct data errors caused by noise, defects in the recording medium, etc. when data sent from the host computer 1 is recorded and reproduced on a disk device. be. Conventionally, fire codes have been commonly used as error correction codes for hard disk drives. However, with fire codes, if the decoding circuit is implemented using hard logic, it must be serial data and cannot be configured in parallel. Therefore, in the present invention, the error correction method includes, for example,
Data is handled in a parallel configuration using the Reed-Solomon code described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-91418.

The drive control unit 15 is a disk control LSI 3
This circuit controls the transfer between the code and decoding circuit 6, and includes a format control unit 50.

The format control unit 50 is a circuit that controls a format for writing sector management information necessary for writing and reading data, a synchronization signal used in a recording and reproducing circuit when reading data, and the like.

When a disk device is used for the first time, it must be formatted.Since the data to be written at this time is not sent from the host computer, the microprocessor 5 and format control unit 50 must perform this formatting.
Data is generated and written in accordance with the storage format described above (see FIG. 5) for each sector.

Furthermore, when writing data sent from the host computer 1 to the disk device, the error correction code 30 generated by the ECC section is added to the data 29 sent from the host computer, and other information (26
, 27, 28° 31). The format control unit 50 also adds this information.

Next, compared to the conventional disk control LSI that stores data serially, the disk control LSI according to this embodiment
FIG. 7, which shows the characteristics of the SI configuration, shows a conventional disk control LSI configuration.

As shown in the figure, data has conventionally been handled in parallel in the CPU interface section 1 and the upper 2 buffer control section 13. However, since the ECC section is a circuit configured to handle serial data, the data is converted to serial data by the parallel-to-serial converter 16 before being converted to EC data.
The C section generates an error correction code and sends it to the drive control section.

On the other hand, the disk control LSI according to this embodiment employs the Reed-Solomon code in the ECC section and handles data in parallel.

In addition, the drive control section is also configured in parallel and the LS
The entire I handles data in parallel.

Note that the ECC section has a conventional configuration, with a parallel-to-serial converter circuit installed in the drive control section, and the output of the drive control section.

Even if the data is configured in parallel, a certain degree of speedup can be achieved. Regarding data transfer inside the LSI, it is possible to achieve a certain degree of high speed by increasing the transfer speed by serial transfer, but when it comes to data transfer with the outside of the LSI, it is difficult to increase the transfer speed. It is from. That is, there is a high probability that data transfer with the outside of the LSI will be the rate-determining step of the processing, and therefore, by parallelizing the data transfer with the outside of the LSI, the overall processing speed can be increased.

Format Dollar 2 Parts Next, the internal configuration of the format control section 50 (see FIG. 2) will be explained.

FIG. 3 shows the configuration of the format control section 50.

In the figure, 51 is a sequencer that decodes commands from the microprocessor 5 (see FIG. 1) and controls each part, and 53 stores ISO data 20a''c for formatting, various synchronization patterns 28a''c, etc. register, 5
A drive interface section 4 performs parallel/serial conversion and output of data based on instructions from the sequencer 51.

FIG. 4 shows the configuration of the drive interface section 54.

In the figure, 55a, b, etc. are registers that store write data, 56 is a selector that performs parallel/serial conversion of the write data, and 57 is a buffer that outputs data selected by the selector 56.

The operation of the format control section 50 during formatting will be described below.

First, the microprocessor 5 instructs the sequencer to that effect, and formats the ISG data 20 a ”.
c, addresses, various synchronization patterns 28a to 28C, etc. are stored in the register 53. Next, the microprocessor 5 instructs the sequencer 51 to execute formatting.

In response to this, the sequencer 51 sequentially reads I from the register.
SO data 20a''c, addresses, various synchronization patterns 28a=c, etc. are transferred to the drive interface section.

The drive interface unit outputs this to the disk drive device, but since the ISO data 20 a = c and various synchronization patterns 28 a - e need to be added for each sector as described above, the selector 56 is The data from the register 53 is serialized and output by sequentially selecting and outputting bits of input data in each bit selector.

By the above operation, ISG data 20 a = c and various synchronization patterns 28 a "c can be added to each sector. In addition, normal storage data, etc. can be output in parallel by outputting without serialization. can be memorized.

Note that instead of parallel/serial conversion, the microprocessor 5 may store a plurality of data in advance in the register 53 so that each bit string constitutes desired data.

The normal operation of the disk device will be described below.

Fifty-two hours of Natsume-komi! The host computer 1 is SCSI (SmallC
computer 5yste＋＊Interface
), etc., sends a write command to the host interface control circuit 2.

The disk drive device 9 positions the magnetic head at the target sector 17 in accordance with this command received via the host interface control circuit 2.

The host computer then sends out the stored data. This data is 1-byte parallel data. The stored data is transferred from the host interface control circuit 2 to the buffer memory 4 by the buffer control unit 13 of the disk control LSI, and then transferred to the buffer memory 4 by the disk control LSI.
Transferred to SI.

800 part 14 inside the disk control LSI.

This data has a Reed-Solomon code 1 which is an error correction code.
Two bytes are added to the data and transferred to the code/decoding circuit 6 via the drive control unit 15 as 1-byte parallel data.

The code decoding circuit 6 converts the code into a 1-7 code, etc., which is a recording code, and the recording/reproducing circuits 7a, b, which have multiple systems, write each code to the sectors 17a, b, c corresponding to the address specified by the write command on the disk. Write the bit.

Deni! Firstly, the host computer 1 sends a read command to the host interface control circuit 2 from the 5C8I or the like. The disk drive device 9 positions the magnetic heads (plurality) at the sectors (plurality) 17a, b, c corresponding to the data address specified by this command received via the host interface control circuit 2.

Then, the recording and reproducing circuits 7 corresponding to these magnetic heads read data simultaneously from a plurality of sectors 17a, b, and c, and the encoding/decoding circuit 6 corrects the data skew between each recording and reproducing circuit to perform parallel processing. NRZ signal. The disk control LSI 3 receives and receives this data, and the 800 section 14 performs error detection. If there is an error, the microprocessor 5 corrects the error based on the error information from the 800 section 14. If there is no error, the data is transferred to the buffer memory 4 and further transferred to the host computer 1 via the host interface control circuit 2.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the data lines of the entire disk control device can be configured in parallel in the disk device, so compared to the case where there is a part that has a serial configuration,
In principle, the speed can be increased by the width of the parallel data bus.

Furthermore, according to this embodiment, only one disk control LSI is required, which has great advantages in terms of cost and mounting area. Furthermore, microprocessor processing is not complicated.

In the above embodiments, an information processing system including a magnetic disk storage device is taken as an example.

Although described above, the present invention is not limited to magnetic disk storage devices, but can be similarly implemented in information processing systems equipped with optical disks or magneto-optical disk control devices.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a disk control LSI for a disk device employing a parallel recording method, which can increase the data transfer rate using one LSI.

Further, according to one aspect of the present invention, it is possible to provide a disk device capable of increasing data transfer speed, and an information processing system using the disk device.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a disk device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a disk control LSI, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a drive control section. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the drive interface unit, FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the storage format on the disk, FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a conventional disk device, and FIG. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a disk control LSI according to the prior art. FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing the storage format on the disk according to the prior art. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Host computer, 2... Host interface control circuit, 3... LSI for disk control, 4...
...Buffer memory, 5...Microprocessor, 6
... Encoding/decoding circuit, 7... Recording/reproducing circuit, 8...
- Disk control device, 9... disk drive device,
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10... Disk device, 11... Host interface control part, 12... CPU interface part, 13... Buffer control part, 14... E
CC section, 15... Drive control section, 16...
・Parallel serial converter, 17... sector, 18・
...Address area, 19...Data area, 20.
... l5O (intersector gap), 27... Pro sync byte, 28... Sync pattern byte, 29...
...Data field, 31...Data pad, 50
...Format control unit, 51...Sequencer, 5
3...Register. 54...Drive interface section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A host interface that inputs and outputs data accessed by a host device, a disk interface that inputs and outputs storage data in parallel to and from a storage disk, and controls data transfer between both interfaces. A disk control LSI comprising: means for controlling a disk. 2. A host interface that inputs and outputs data accessed by a host device in parallel, a disk interface that inputs and outputs storage data to and from a storage disk in parallel, and means for controlling parallel transfer of data between both interfaces. and means to obtain a code for detecting errors in transferred data in units of parallel data, parallelize it to the same number of bits as the transferred parallel data, and add it to the parallel data transferred from the host interface to the disk interface; 1. A disk control LSI comprising means for detecting errors in the transfer data from a code added to parallel data transferred to a host interface for detecting errors in the transfer data. 3. The disk control LSI according to claim 2, wherein a Reed-Solomon code is used as a code for detecting errors in the transferred data. 4. A disk control device according to claim 1, 2 or 3, comprising means for outputting storage disk sector management information to be written to a storage disk in parallel by the number of bits of the transferred parallel data from the disk interface. A disk control LSI characterized by: 5. A storage device comprising a storage disk and the disk control LSI according to claim 1, which controls parallel transfer of data between the storage disk and the storage disk. 6. A buffer memory that holds parallel data accessed by the host device, a disk control circuit that controls parallel transfer of data between the buffer memory and the storage disk, and a code for storing data on the storage disk into a recording code on the storage disk. A code that performs encoding and decoding from a recording code.
A storage device comprising a decoding circuit and a storage disk that stores storage data in parallel. 7. An information processing system comprising the storage device according to claim 5 or 6 and a host device that accesses the storage device.