Descriptor Fetch - 4.0 English

QDMA Subsystem for PCI Express Product Guide (PG302)

Document ID
PG302
Release Date
2022-05-20
Version
4.0 English
Figure 1. Descriptor Fetch Flow
  1. The descriptor engine is informed of the availability of descriptors through an update to a queue’s descriptor PIDX. This portion of the context is direct mapped to the QDMA_DMAP_SEL_H2C_DSC_PIDX and QDMA_DMAP_SEL_C2H_DSC_PIDX address space.
  2. On a PIDX update, the descriptor engine evaluates the number of descriptors available based on the last fetched consumer index (CIDX). The availability of new descriptors is communicated to the user logic through the Traffic Manager Status Interface.
  3. If fetch crediting is enabled, the user logic is required to provide a credit for each descriptor that should be fetched.
  4. If descriptors are available and either fetch credits are disabled or are non-zero, the descriptor engine will generate a descriptor fetch to PCIe. The number of fetched descriptors is further qualified by the PCIe Max Read Request Size (MRRS) and descriptor fetch credits, if enabled. A descriptor fetch can also be stalled due to insufficient completion space. In each direction, C2H and H2C are allocated 256 entries for descriptor fetch completions. Each entry is the width of the datapath. If sufficient space is available, the fetch is allowed to proceed. A given queue can only have one descriptor fetch pending on PCIe at any time.
  5. The host receives the read request and provides the descriptor read completion to the descriptor engine.
  6. Descriptors are stored in a buffer until they can be offloaded. If the queue is configured in bypass mode, the descriptors are sent to the Descriptor Bypass Output port. Otherwise they are delivered directly to a DMA engine. Once delivered, the descriptor fetch completion buffer space is deallocated.
Note: Available descriptors are always <ring size> - 2. At any time, the software should not update the PIDX to more than <ring size> - 2.

For example, if queue size is 8, which contains the entry index 0 to 7, the last entry (index 7) is reserved for status. This index should never be used for the PIDX update, and the PIDX update should never be equal to CIDX. For this case, if CIDX is 0, the maximum PIDX update would be 6.