Descriptor Format

Versal Adaptive SoC Technical Reference Manual (AM011)

Document ID
AM011
Release Date
2023-10-05
Revision
1.6 English

In scatter-gather DMA mode, the channel reads the data from the address specified in the SRC descriptor and writes to a location specified by the DST descriptor. The DMA implements a hybrid descriptor to support descriptor storage in two formats.

  • Linear
  • Linked-list
  • Hybrid (multiple linear buffer descriptor arrays chained as a linked list)

Software can make use of a hybrid descriptor to dynamically switch between linear and linked-list mode. The hybrid descriptor approach allows the DMA driver software to arrange descriptors in a contiguous array of BDs, a linked list of BDs, or a mixed mode in which contiguous arrays of BDs can be chained together to create a linked list of BD arrays. This approach allows the driver software to be designed in a manner in which BDs can be allocated at initialization or in real time (and chained to a preceding BD). In applications where contiguous sets of memory are easily available, the software driver might not be able to manage a link list for descriptor storage. In this case, the descriptor can be stored in a linear array.

To support previously described cases, the DMA implements a hybrid descriptor. Each descriptor on the SRC and DST side implements a bit descriptor-element type, which indicates the type of the current descriptor. This allows software to switch between a linear and a link-list scheme dynamically. The following figure shows supported descriptor modes.

Figure 1. DMA Supported Descriptor Mode Use-cases in Scatter-Gather Mode