Acquisition accuracy enhancement of high-speed storage interface signals

Abstract

As storage interfaces have begun to employ high-speed signals and complex protocols, it has become increasingly difficult to ensure correct interactions between hosts and their storage. Correctness verification often requires the acquisition and thorough inspection of signals running at the interface. However, increases in interface signaling frequency may aggravate misalignment between sampling clocks and signals as well as among multiple signals, rendering signal acquisition and inspection difficult. To address this problem, this paper proposes a dynamic phase alignment scheme that can be used within a signal acquisition system. The proposed scheme was implemented on a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) board and was verified to successfully capture interface signals.