The MG9100 UBM Backplane Controller is a low-cost, small footprint solution for enclosure management of single and dual ported NVMe SSD backplanes as well as traditional SAS/SATA backplanes through the Universal Backplane Management (UBM) protocol. A single MG9100 controller supports up to 8 drives, while a maximum of 32 drives are supported when four MG9100 controllers are cascaded together.

The MG9100 UBM Backplane Controller was designed to foster simplicity in the management of all types of server drives – SAS, SATA and NVMe – and help standardize the management of multi-protocol backplanes. It leverages the UBM protocol for backplane management with the help of two/four UBM SMBuses communicating with the UBM controller on the host, making it capable of managing hybrid backplanes with a combination of SAS, SATA and NVMe SSDs. It also features support for legacy protocols such as SGPIO (SFF-8485), BMC SMBus and Host Hot-Plug VPP or SHP SMBus as well.

The MG9100 UBM Backplane Controller comes ready to use in a space-efficient QFN-64 package with 9 mm x 9 mm pin outline, with no firmware or programming required. It supports the International Blinking Pattern Interpretation (IBPI) specification (SFF-8489), with both 2-LED and 3-LED blinking supported for up to 8 drives. Additional features include Global Activity and Global Fail Status LEDs for the backplane as well as separate LEDs for Activity, Locate and Fail states for each drive. Preloaded and downloadable custom LED blinking patterns are also available for the MG9100.

Founder, CEO and President of AMI, Subramanian Shankar, commented on this news by saying, “Today’s announcement of our latest MG9100 Backplane Controller represents an evolution in our backplane controller family, as a truly universal solution for hybrid server environments. We believe the MG9100 will be a key component to help streamline and simplify management of the IT infrastructure at large and provide flexibility and choice for end users as they select optimal drive configurations to meet the needs of specific workloads and other constraints.”

For more information on the new MG9100 UBM Backplane Controller from AMI, please visit our website at ami.com/solutions/storage-subsystem/ or contact our sales team at 1-800-828-9264.

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EC firmware has steadily evolved from the keyboard controller of the last millennia to what it is today. Along the way, it’s kept many of its legacy components, which include old-fashioned communication methods such as communicating through the low pin count (LPC) bus. At the same time, it’s picked up added features such as LED status indicators and added button controls.

Good Bye LPC Bus

As the industry moves away from legacy components and buses due to increased security requirements and the need for improved performance, both in speed and efficiency, silicon vendors are transitioning away from the LPC bus to the newer eSPI bus. This offers ODMs and OEMs the opportunity to not only switch to the eSPI bus, but to switch to a more modern EC firmware implementation from AMI. AMI’s eSPI-compatible EC firmware solution is ready to help them during this transition. AMI EC features full eSPI functionality, USB Type-C support, USB PD and improved power management.

AMI EC leverages the same Aptio V Tools and Utilities

OEM and ODM customers who have developed extensive BIOS porting and development skills using Visual eBIOS (VeB), the advanced graphical environment for firmware development in Aptio® V, AMI’s flagship UEFI BIOS offering, will be happy to know that in switching to AMI EC, these same skills can be transferred to their EC development efforts.

For a complete list of supported EC chips and for more information on how to get started with general licensing, access, porting and development with AMI EC firmware, please contact your AMI representative at 1-800-U-BUY- AMI / +1-770-246-8600 or visit ami.com.USB Type-C™ is a trademark of USB or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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So what exactly can embedded controllers be used for? Some functions include:

• Turning computer on and off
• Battery management
• Keyboard and mouse control
• Screen brightness
• Recognition of port, USB, and/or cable attachments

On top of controlling multiple aspects of a system, ECs can also recognize when certain types of devices are connected. Whenever power cords, USBs, Thunderbolt™ ports and/or DisplayPort™ are connected, the embedded controller will be able to identify the devices and direct them to the proper internal connector, i.e. if a power cord is connected, the system will connect to the power and the system will start charging. Embedded controllers have been around for a very long time; in fact, embedded controllers have been around since the first computers were made! So why haven’t embedded controllers been replaced by more advanced technologies over the years? Turns out no one has created an alternative to embedded controllers so they are still used to this day. In fact, more and more features have been developed that make use of the embedded controller! With advanced features being constantly added to ECs, EC development can become complicated at times; however, AMI makes it easy with its top-notch service, making high-quality Embedded Controller solutions!

For more information about AMI Embedded Controllers, visit Power Up page or download the AMI Embedded Controller Data Sheet.

Thunderbolt is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. DisplayPort is a trademark of VESA in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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Before we can explain what a backplane controller (BPC) is, we need to define what a backplane is. There are different types of backplanes. We will be discussing drive backplanes.

Basically, a backplane is a board (also known as a PCB or printed circuit board) with a bunch of connectors (or slots) that allows a server to access multiple drives.

No Backplane Scenario

Most of the time, there is one drive to one connector. So, if a server has 16 drives, you will have 16 connectors. That’s a lot of signals. When you have all these drives, guess what? Managing drives becomes a headache.

Managing a bunch of drives becomes a headache! What do you mean by that?

Imagine that a drive goes bad and you have 16 drives. So, you need to replace the bad drive. You have to power down the server and then… wait a minute… which drive went bad? It says the fifth drive went bad. Was it the fifth drive from the right or from the left? Is it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? Is it 0, 1, 2, 3, 4?

So, there is a lot of confusion.

Someone decided that it would be great idea if there was some sort of indicator. They created an LED indicator to identify the faulty drive. It would flash allowing you to know the exact location of the faulty drive. However, with the server is still powered on. You cannot just remove the drive. This means that you need the drive to be hot pluggable.

For a server system with a bunch of drives, there are an assortment of LEDs that have to be managed. There will be one or more LEDs per drive/connector. The LEDs will display the status of the drive attached to the slot. For example:

• Drive good, solid green LED
• Drive bad, solid red or amber LED
• Drive reading or writing, flash green LED
• Drive rebuilding, flash red LED
• No drive present/absent, no LED
• Drive pulled out
• Drive plugged in

This is where the BPC comes in. It is a mechanism for indicating the status of your drive assembly. The BPC also allows the processor to communicate to it opposed to each individual drive — one device opposed to many.

When you add NVMe to the mix, the complexity becomes even greater. NVMe does not use the same communication methods as SAS and SATA. So you have to build other methods into it to support NVMe. SAS and SATA hot plug is difficult to engineer. NVMe hot plug is even more difficult.

Once you have designed and built a backplane controller, you have to test it. If the backplane has 16 slots, you will have over 64 thousand different configuration possibilities. Can you imagine having to test all these combinations?

AMI has developed and tested an NVMe BPC called the MG9098 BPC. One MG90989 can support a combination of eight SAS, SATA and NVMe drives. It can support up to 32 drives when using four of them. As far as I can tell, when we released it, it was an industry first.

Please visit Sorage Subsystem product page for a full listing of AMI’s BPCs.

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Our OEM and ODM customers find our backplane controllers extremely useful because they offer a large amount of functionality and features off the shelf, with little programming or customization required to be added into a design. Their utility also makes them a great starting or reference point for customers looking to customize a unique solution based on the standard, off-the-shelf AMI design. For many years, AMI has offered a wide choice of reference designs and development tools for its backplane controller lineup, along with development boards to speed integration in specific OEM designs.

In today’s Tech Blog post, we will focus on our latest addition to this highly successful family of products, the MG9098 Backplane Controller, talking briefly about how its new and unique features change the game. Launched in April of 2017, the MG9098 is a low-cost, QFM-64 single-chip solution for enclosure management of new generation NVM Express® SSD backplanes. Notably, it supports NVMe in addition to traditional SAS and SATA backplanes as well, with no custom firmware or programming required – the first chip in the AMI family to do so.

For readers not familiar with it, NVM Express (Non-Volatile Memory Express, or nVME™) is an open collection of standards and information maintained by the industry standards group of the same name, consisting of many of the leading manufacturers of server and storage equipment in the industry today. Its mission, as described on its website, is to “fully expose the benefits of non-volatile memory in all types of computing environments from mobile to data center. NVMe is designed from the ground up to deliver high bandwidth and low latency storage access for current and future NVMe technologies.”

A single MG9098 controller can support a combination of eight SATA, SAS or NVMe drives simultaneously, with support for up to 32 drives by cascading together four MG9098 controllers. With these capabilities, the MG9098 enables the world’s leading enterprise system builders and data center solution providers to design low-cost, space-efficient backplane solutions for NVMe, SAS and SATA-based storage subsystems.

Because the MG9098 is a single-chip solution, like all our MG Backplane Controllers, it allows manufacturers to reduce components and chip count in their designs for more efficient use of space and lower material cost. This type of thoughtful design underscores our constant drive to enable our OEM and ODM customers to deliver powerful and affordable products that consistently meet the performance and price requirements of cloud, data center and similar high-performance computing environments.

For more information about the MG9098 Backplane Controller, please see the press release announcing the product launch here: ami.com/ami-announces-mg9098-backplane-controller-first-single-chip-solution-for-nvme-sata-and-sas-drives/.

Product information, including data sheets, can be found here: ami.com/bpc.

Thanks for reading today’s Tech Blog! Do you have any experience using AMI backplane controllers or any questions about them? Feel free to drop us a line via social media or our Contact Us form and let us know – and what you might like to see in future posts!

NVM Express® and NVMe™ are registered trademarks and trademarks of NVM Express, Inc., respectively.

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