Intel® Arria® 10 or Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Avalon® Memory-Mapped (Avalon-MM) DMA Interface for PCI Express* Solutions User Guide

ID 683425
Date 6/03/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.3. Comparison of Avalon-ST, Avalon-MM and Avalon-MM with DMA Interfaces

Table 4.  Feature Comparison for all Hard IP for PCI Express IP CoresThe table compares the features of the three mainstream Hard IP for PCI Express IP Cores. Refer to the Intel® Arria® 10 Avalon-ST Interface with SR-IOV PCIe Solutions User Guide for the features of that variant.

Feature

Avalon-ST Interface

Avalon-MM Interface

Avalon-MM DMA

IP Core License

Free

Free

Free

Native Endpoint

Supported

Supported

Supported

Root port

Supported

Supported

Not supported

Gen1

×1, ×2, ×4, ×8

×1, ×2, ×4, ×8

x8

Gen2

×1, ×2, ×4, ×8

×1, ×2, ×4, ×8

×4, ×8

Gen3

×1, ×2, ×4, ×8

×1, ×2, ×4, x8 4

×2, ×4, ×8 5

64-bit Application Layer interface

Supported

Supported

Not supported

128-bit Application Layer interface

Supported

Supported

Supported

256‑bit Application Layer interface

Supported

Supported

Supported

Maximum payload size

128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048 bytes

128, 256 bytes

128, 256 bytes

Number of tags supported for non-posted requests

32, 64, 128, or 256

8 for the 64-bit interface

16 for the 128-bit interface

16 or 256

Automatically handle out-of-order completions (transparent to the Application Layer)

Not supported

Supported

Not Supported

Automatically handle requests that cross 4 KB address boundary (transparent to the Application Layer)

Not supported

Supported

Supported

Polarity Inversion of PIPE interface signals

Supported

Supported

Supported

Number of MSI requests

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32

MSI-X

Supported

Supported

Supported

Legacy interrupts

Supported

Supported

Supported

Expansion ROM

Supported

Not supported

Not supported

PCIe bifurcation Not supported Not supported Not supported
Note: This table applies across device families. For specific widths and speeds supported by the Intel® Arria® 10 or Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX devices, refer to the tables in the Features section.
Table 5.  TLP Support Comparison for all Hard IP for PCI Express IP CoresThe table compares the TLP types that the Hard IP for PCI Express IP Cores variants can transmit. Each entry indicates whether this TLP type is supported (for transmit) by Endpoints (EP), Root Ports (RP), or both (EP/RP). For the Avalon-MM DMA interface, a software application programs a descriptor controller to specify DMA transfers between host and IP memory. The Read DMA Avalon-MM Master port and Write DMA Avalon-MM Master port send read and write TLPs, respectively. The optional TX Slave module supports single, non-bursting Memory Write TLPs to send status updates to the host.

TLP (Transmit Support)

Avalon-ST Interface

Avalon-MM Interface

Avalon-MM DMA

Memory Read Request (Mrd) EP/RP EP/RP EP/RP

(Read DMA Avalon-MM Master)

Memory Read Lock Request (MRdLk) EP/RP Not supported Not supported
Memory Write Request (MWr) EP/RP EP/RP EP/RP

(Write DMA Avalon-MM Master)

(TX Slave - optional)

I/O Read Request (IORd) EP/RP EP/RP Not supported
I/O Write Request (IOWr) EP/RP EP/RP Not supported
Config Type 0 Read Request (CfgRd0) RP RP Not supported
Config Type 0 Write Request (CfgWr0) RP RP Not supported
Config Type 1 Read Request (CfgRd1) RP RP Not supported
Config Type 1 Write Request (CfgWr1) RP RP Not supported
Message Request (Msg) EP/RP Not supported Not supported
Message Request with Data (MsgD) EP/RP Not supported Not supported
Completion (Cpl) EP/RP EP/RP EP/RP

(Read & Write DMA Avalon-MM Masters)

Completion with Data (CplD) EP/RP Not supported EP/RP

(Read & Write DMA Avalon-MM Masters)

Completion-Locked (CplLk) EP/RP Not supported Not supported
Completion Lock with Data (CplDLk) EP/RP Not supported Not supported
Fetch and Add AtomicOp Request (FetchAdd) EP Not supported Not supported

The Intel® Arria® 10 or Intel® Cyclone® 10 GX Avalon-MM DMA Interface for PCIe Solutions User Guide explains how to use this IP core and not the PCI Express protocol. Although there is inevitable overlap between these two purposes, use this document only in conjunction with an understanding of the PCI Express Base Specification.

4 Gen3 x8 Avalon-MM is supported in Root Port mode only
5 Gen3 x8 Avalon-MM DMA is supported in Endpoint mode only