2008-04-29 04:00:31 -04:00
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DMA attributes
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==============
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This document describes the semantics of the DMA attributes that are
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defined in linux/dma-attrs.h.
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DMA_ATTR_WRITE_BARRIER
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----------------------
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DMA_ATTR_WRITE_BARRIER is a (write) barrier attribute for DMA. DMA
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to a memory region with the DMA_ATTR_WRITE_BARRIER attribute forces
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all pending DMA writes to complete, and thus provides a mechanism to
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strictly order DMA from a device across all intervening busses and
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bridges. This barrier is not specific to a particular type of
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interconnect, it applies to the system as a whole, and so its
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implementation must account for the idiosyncracies of the system all
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the way from the DMA device to memory.
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As an example of a situation where DMA_ATTR_WRITE_BARRIER would be
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useful, suppose that a device does a DMA write to indicate that data is
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ready and available in memory. The DMA of the "completion indication"
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could race with data DMA. Mapping the memory used for completion
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indications with DMA_ATTR_WRITE_BARRIER would prevent the race.
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2008-07-18 09:03:34 -04:00
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DMA_ATTR_WEAK_ORDERING
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----------------------
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DMA_ATTR_WEAK_ORDERING specifies that reads and writes to the mapping
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may be weakly ordered, that is that reads and writes may pass each other.
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Since it is optional for platforms to implement DMA_ATTR_WEAK_ORDERING,
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those that do not will simply ignore the attribute and exhibit default
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behavior.
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