P-tile Avalon® Memory-mapped Intel® FPGA IP for PCI Express* Design Example User Guide

ID 683853
Date 3/28/2022
Public

2.4.1. Read DMA Example

A Read DMA transfers data from the PCIe address space (system memory) to the Avalon-MM address space. It sends Memory Read TLPs upstream, and writes the completion data to local memory in the Avalon-MM address space using the Read Data Mover's Avalon® -MM write master interface.

The sequence of steps the example design follows to do a Read DMA is:
  1. Prepare a table of descriptors (padded to 512-bit each) to perform the Read operation and put the table into the system memory.
  2. Using the BAM, send one descriptor from software containing the address of the descriptor table to the DMA Controller, which forwards it to the Read Data Mover.
  3. The Read Data Mover fetches the descriptor table and puts it in a FIFO inside the DMA Controller.
  4. The DMA Controller outputs these descriptors to the Read Data Mover based on the readiness of the Read Data Mover (indicated by an asserted rddm_desc_ready_o or rddm_prio_ready_o signal).
  5. The Read Data Mover processes the descriptors by fetching data from the system memory, and writing it to the appropriate Avalon® -MM memory.
  6. The last descriptor processed by the Read Data Mover points to an immediate write descriptor (i.e, a descriptor where the data to be written is inside the descriptor itself) in the system memory. This descriptor's destination address is the Avalon® memory address of the DMA Controller's Write Data Mover port. The Read Data Mover fetches this descriptor from system memory and transfers it to the DMA Controller's Write Data Mover Avalon® address.
  7. The Write Data Mover uses the descriptor from Step 6 to perform an immediate write to the system memory indicating the completion of the Read Data Mover’s data processing.