Intel® Arria® 10 Hard Processor System Technical Reference Manual

ID 683711
Date 8/28/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

20.5.6.1. Transmit FIFO Buffer Underflow

During SPI serial transfers, transmit FIFO buffer requests are made to the DMA Controller whenever the number of entries in the transmit FIFO buffer is less or equal to the value in DMA Transmit Data Level Register (DMATDLR); also known as the watermark level. The DMA Controller responds by writing a burst of data to the transmit FIFO buffer, of length specified as DMA burst length.†

Note: Data should be fetched from the DMA often enough for the transmit FIFO buffer to perform serial transfers continuously, that is, when the FIFO buffer begins to empty, another DMA request should be triggered. Otherwise, the FIFO buffer runs out of data (underflow). To prevent this condition, you must set the watermark level correctly.†