Embedded Peripherals IP User Guide

ID 683130
Date 10/24/2025
Public
Document Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Avalon® -ST Serial Peripheral Interface Core 3. SPI Core 4. SPI Agent/JTAG to Avalon® Host Bridge Cores 5. Intel eSPI Agent Core 6. eSPI to LPC Bridge Core 7. Ethernet MDIO Core 8. Intel FPGA 16550 Compatible UART Core 9. UART Core 10. Lightweight UART Core 11. JTAG UART Core 12. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mailbox Core 13. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mutex Core 14. Intel FPGA Avalon® I2C (Host) Core 15. Intel FPGA I2C Agent to Avalon® -MM Host Bridge Core 16. EPCS/EPCQA Serial Flash Controller Core 17. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller Core 18. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller II Core 19. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller Core 20. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller II Core 21. Interval Timer Core 22. Intel FPGA Avalon FIFO Memory Core 23. On-Chip Memory (RAM and ROM) Intel FPGA IP 24. On-Chip Memory II (RAM or ROM) Intel FPGA IP 25. PIO Core 26. PLL Cores 27. DMA Controller Core 28. Modular Scatter-Gather DMA Core 29. Scatter-Gather DMA Controller Core 30. Video Sync Generator and Pixel Converter Cores 31. Intel FPGA Interrupt Latency Counter Core 32. Performance Counter Unit Core 33. Vectored Interrupt Controller Core 34. System ID Peripheral Core 35. Intel FPGA GMII to RGMII Converter Core 36. HPS GMII to RGMII Adapter IP 37. Intel FPGA MII to RMII Converter Core 38. HPS GMII to TSE 1000BASE-X/SGMII PCS Bridge Core IP 39. Intel FPGA HPS EMAC to Multi-rate PHY GMII Adapter Core 40. Intel FPGA MSI to GIC Generator Core 41. Cache Coherency Translator IP 42. Altera ACE5-Lite Cache Coherency Translator

27.3.1. DMA Parameters (Basic)

The DMA Parameters page includes the following parameters.

Transfer Size

The parameter Width of the DMA Length Register specifies the minimum width of the DMA’s transaction length register, which can be between 1 and 32. The length register determines the maximum number of transfers possible in a single DMA transaction.

By default, the length register is wide enough to span any of the agent peripherals hosted by the read or write ports. Overriding the length register may be necessary if the DMA host port (read or write) hosts only data peripherals, such as a UART. In this case, the address span of each agent is small, but a larger number of transfers may be desired per DMA transaction. A smaller transfer width usually results in a faster FPGA frequency for the DMA Controller Core.

Burst Transactions

When Enable Burst Transfers is turned on, the DMA controller performs burst transactions on its host read and write ports. The parameter Maximum Burst Size determines the maximum burst size allowed in a transaction.

In burst mode, the length of a transaction must not be longer than the configured maximum burst size. Otherwise, the transaction must be performed as multiple transactions.

FIFO Depth

The parameter Data Transfer FIFO Depth specifies the depth of the FIFO buffer used for data transfers. Intel recommends that you set the depth of the FIFO buffer to at least twice the maximum read latency of the agent interface connected to the read host port. A depth that is too low reduces transfer throughput.

FIFO Implementation

This option determines the implementation of the FIFO buffer between the host read and write ports. Select Construct FIFO from Registers to implement the FIFO using one register per storage bit. This option has a strong impact on logic utilization when the DMA controller’s data width is large. See the Advanced Options section.

By default, the FIFO implementation uses the embedded memory blocks.