Scalable Scatter-Gather DMA Intel® FPGA IP User Guide

Download PDF
ID 823097
Date 4/07/2025
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Terms and Acronyms 2. Introduction 3. Functional Description 4. Interfaces 5. HAL Driver for DMA SoC Mode  6. Parameters 7. Registers 8. Document Revision History for the Scalable Scatter-Gather DMA Intel® FPGA IP User Guide
2. Introduction x
2.1. Device Family Support 2.2. Release Information 2.3. Resource Utilization
3. Functional Description x
3.1. DMA PCIe* Mode 3.2. DMA SoC Mode 3.3. Device Port 3.4. Prefetcher Engine 3.5. DMA Arbiter 3.6. DMA Router 3.7. CSRUnit 3.8. Descriptor Handling 3.9. Interrupts 3.10. Reset Initialization Flows 3.11. Transaction Flow
3.1. DMA PCIe* Mode x
3.1.1. Submodules
3.1.1. Submodules x
3.1.1.1. PCIe* TLP Constructor 3.1.1.2. PCIe* TLP ID Generation 3.1.1.3. PCIe TX Credit Controller 3.1.1.4. PCIe* TX Scheduler 3.1.1.5. PCIe TLP Completer 3.1.1.6. PCIe RX Router 3.1.1.7. PCIe* MSI-X Controller 3.1.1.8. PCIe BAR0 3.1.1.9. PCIe Bursting Manager (BAM) 3.1.1.10. Completion Timeout Parser 3.1.1.11. Control Shadow Parser
3.2. DMA SoC Mode x
3.2.1. Interrupt Controller 3.2.2. Host AXI-4 Agent 3.2.3. Host CSR AXI-4 Lite Agent
3.3. Device Port x
3.3.1. ST Source Agent/ST Sink Agent/MM Agent 3.3.2. Descriptor Engine 3.3.3. Agent Controller 3.3.4. Constructor 3.3.5. Responder 3.3.6. Width Adaptation FIFO
3.8. Descriptor Handling x
3.8.1. Link Descriptor 3.8.2. Data Descriptor 3.8.3. Responder Descriptor 3.8.4. Descriptor Chain 3.8.5. Aligned and Unaligned Transfer Support
3.8.2. Data Descriptor x
3.8.2.1. Data Descriptor - H2D Streaming Transfer 3.8.2.2. Data Descriptor - D2H Streaming Transfer 3.8.2.3. Data Descriptor - H2D Memory Transfer
3.8.3. Responder Descriptor x
3.8.3.1. Responder Descriptor - H2D Streaming Transfer 3.8.3.2. Responder Descriptor - D2H Streaming Transfer 3.8.3.3. Responder Descriptor - H2D Memory Transfer
3.8.4. Descriptor Chain x
3.8.4.1. Descriptor Fetch and Status Update Mechanism
3.11. Transaction Flow x
3.11.1. General DMA Operation Flow 3.11.2. Host to Device (H2D) Flow 3.11.3. Device to Host (D2H) Flow 3.11.4. Soft Reset Handshake Flow
4. Interfaces x
4.1. Port List 4.2. DMA PCIe* Mode Interfaces 4.3. DMA SoC Mode Interfaces 4.4. Device Port Interfaces 4.5. Resets 4.6. Clocks
4.2. DMA PCIe* Mode Interfaces x
4.2.1. Application Packet Receive Interface 4.2.2. Application Packet Transmit Interface 4.2.3. Control Shadow Interface 4.2.4. Transmit Flow Control Credit Interface 4.2.5. Completion Timeout Interface 4.2.6. PCIe* Miscellaneous Signals 4.2.7. Control and Status Register Responder Manager Interface 4.2.8. Bursting Manager Interface
4.3. DMA SoC Mode Interfaces x
4.3.1. Host AXI-4 Memory Map Manager Interface 4.3.2. Host AXI-4 Lite CSR Memory Map Subordinate Interface 4.3.3. Interrupt Interface
4.4. Device Port Interfaces x
4.4.1. Device to Host <PORT#> AXI-ST Subordinate Interface 4.4.2. Device to Host <PORT#> Avalon-ST Sink Interface 4.4.3. Host to Device <PORT#> AXI-ST Manager Interface 4.4.4. Host to Device <PORT#> Avalon-ST Source Interface 4.4.5. Host to Device <PORT#> AXI-4 Manager Interface
5. HAL Driver for DMA SoC Mode  x
5.1. Descriptor Indexing  5.2. HAL Public API 
5.1. Descriptor Indexing  x
5.1.1. Data Descriptors  5.1.2. Responders 
5.2. HAL Public API  x
5.2.1. Software Features 5.2.2. intel_ssgdma.c  5.2.3. intel_ssgdma_global.c 5.2.4. intel_ssgdma_device_port.c  5.2.5. intel_ssgdma_descriptor.c 
6. Parameters x
6.1. DMA Settings 6.2. Device Port Settings 6.3. DMA PCIe Mode Settings 6.4. DMA SoC Mode Settings 6.5. Example Design
6.2. Device Port Settings x
6.2.1. H2D MM 6.2.2. H2D ST 6.2.3. D2H ST
7. Registers x
7.1. Global CSR 7.2. MSI-X Memory Space 7.3. Device Port Control Register
1. Terms and Acronyms
2. Introduction
3. Functional Description
4. Interfaces
5. HAL Driver for DMA SoC Mode 
6. Parameters
7. Registers
8. Document Revision History for the Scalable Scatter-Gather DMA Intel® FPGA IP User Guide

3.5. DMA Arbiter

The DMA Arbiter module is responsible to grant permission to push data out from internal FIFO modules for different source agents in round-robin basis:
  • For DMA PCIe mode, the decision on granting permission for a read or write transfer is based on available credits advertised by TX Credit Controller.
  • For DMA SoC mode, the decision on granting permission for a read or write transfer is equal weighted if the subsequent AXI4 subordinate is ready to receive the data.

Considering the following example where there is a number of pending read and write transfers issued:

  1. Prefetcher Engine has 2 pending command transfers.
  2. MSI-X Controller has 1 pending command transfer.
  3. H2D device agent 0 has 2 pending command transfers.
  4. D2H device agent 0 has 1 pending command transfers.

The round-robin arbitration process is expected to be happen as below:

  • 1st transaction: Granted one command transfer from Prefetcher Engine.
  • 2nd transaction: Granted one command transfer from MSI-X Controller.
  • 3rd transaction: Granted one command transfer from H2D device agent 0.
  • 4th transaction: Granted one command transfer from D2H device agent 0.
  • 5th transaction: Granted one command transfer from Prefetcher Engine.
  • 6th transaction: Granted one command transfer from H2D device agent 0.
Note: All source agents have equal priority, and the DMA Arbiter is not expected to continuously grant permission to the same source agent while it still has some pending requests in the FIFO.

In this case, assuming the earliest command received in time was from Prefetcher Engine, so a permission was granted to push out one transfer from its internal FIFO first. For subsequent 2nd to 4th transactions, the sequence ordering is interchangeable if the next granted agent was different with the current one. For 5th and 6th transactions, the sequence ordering is interchangeable as you only have one remaining command from both Prefetcher Engine and H2D device agent 0. The rule of thumb here is that the DMA Arbiter grants these two agents again only after going through the other agents that have pending requests to be transferred as well.

Level Two Title