DMA Transfer Configuration Settings

 DMA Transfer Configuration Settings

The purpose of acquiring logical channel handles is to submit DMA transfer requests. Each submitted DMA transfer request specifies a source and destination memory region. A background DMA activity asynchronously carries out the copying of the contents of the source memory region to the destination.

The configuration setting of a logical channel is similar to the hardware register settings of the underlying EDMA3.0 hardware DMA device. However, each logical channel retains its configured DMA transfer settings. The most recently configured transfer settings at the time the ACPY3_start function is called apply to the asynchronously started DMA transfer.

Two properties of DMA transfers make them desirable and performance critical for algorithms:

    The physical transfer/copy operation takes place in the “background” under the close control of specialized circuitry and controllers. This allows algorithms to issue transfer requests in advance and to perform other useful operations while data is being copied in the background.
    The physical layout of source or destination DMA transfer blocks need not be a single contiguous chunk of memory. By setting a few channel configuration parameters, algorithms can specify complex layout patterns. This can lead to significant performance improvements even if the algorithm cannot take advantage of asynchronous execution and the CPU sits idle while waiting for the transfer to complete.

The unit of DMA transfer is a block composed of frames and elements. Each DMA transfer is submitted on a logical channel via the ACPY3_start function. The source and destination addresses for the blocks and the number of elements in each frame are now part of the channel’s configuration settings. The configuration parameters are intrinsic properties of each logical channel and are set exclusively when the algorithm calls ACPY3 configuration functions. The previously configured properties of each logical channel at the time of an ACPY3_start request determine the actual memory copied from source to destination. Each DMA transfer is characterized by the following list configurable attributes. (Figure 2 illustrates the memory layout of a DMA transfer block characterized by these configuration parameters). Note that the element and frame index parameters can be configured independently for both source and destination.

    transferType. 1D-to-1D, 1D-to-2D, 2D-to-1D or 2D-to-2D
    elementSize. The number of 8-bit bytes per element. The element size for ACPY3 transfers can be a variable number, 1 <= number <= 65535, whereas the IDMA2/ACPY2 specification required this to be either 1,2, or 4.
    numFrames. The number of frames in a block, 1 <= number <= 65535.
    SrcElementIndex and DstElementIndex. The offset in 8-bit bytes between the start addresses of two consecutive elements in a frame. Element indexes must be specified only when the source or destination is a 2D transfer. They are ignored for 1D transfers. Element indexes can be signed (i.e. negative) values in the range: -32767 <= number <= 32768.
    SrcFrameIndex and DstFrameIndex 1. The offset in 8-bit bytes between the start addresses of the first elements of two consecutive frames. (NOTE: This corresponds to the AB-synched SRC/DST CIDX settings in the EDMA3.0 DMA parameters.) Frame indexes must be specified only when the number of frames > 1, otherwise they are ignored. Frame indexes can be signed (negative or positive) values in the range: -32767 <= number <= 32768.
    numElements. The number of elements per frame, 1 <= number <= 65535.
    srcAddr and dstAddr. 8-bit byte-addresses.