Lowest power mode for a mobile drive

摘要

A hard disk drive enters a low power mode to reduce power consumption. To maintain communication with a host device, a communication interface remains energized along with a circuit portion storing configuration data for the communication interface. To energize the communication interface and the circuit portion, low power voltage regulators provide suitable reference voltages. One low power voltage regulator is dedicated to this purpose. Another voltage regulator is converted from an active, switching mode to a low power, linear mode to provide the necessary reference voltage. Also, unique handshaking signals are used to control entry and exit from the low power mode by the hard disk drive.

主权项

1. A storage device configured to operate in an active mode and a low power mode, the storage device comprising:
an interface configured to communicate with an external device; a core in communication with the interface, the core configured to maintain configuration information for the interface when the storage device operates in the low power mode; and a module configured to output a first signal to the core and a second signal to the interface when the storage device operates in the low power mode, wherein, during the low power mode, the core is configured to maintain the configuration information in response to receipt of the first signal and the interface is configured to be active in response to receipt of the second signal.