From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: Promise SX4[-M] Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 22:58:02 -0400 Message-ID: <435707BA.4050104@pobox.com> References: <435703BE.602@latech.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from mail.dvmed.net ([216.237.124.58]:33448 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751714AbVJTC6I (ORCPT ); Wed, 19 Oct 2005 22:58:08 -0400 In-Reply-To: <435703BE.602@latech.edu> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Ryan Bourgeois Cc: Linux IDE Mailing List Ryan Bourgeois wrote: > What's the latest status on the Promise SX4 cards? Has anyone looked > into employing the onboard DRAM for anything yet? I remember at one > point we had a nice little dialog going about this card, but I don't > know that it really amounted to anything. > > Jeff, if nobody has done anything with this since back whenever, you > could pass to me what documentation you have for it and some of the > ideas you had for this card and I can see what I can do. I think it'd > be an interesting project for me to start, time permitting. NDAs (legal stuff) prevents passing around documentation. I can certainly summarize what is public in the sata_sx4.c driver: * one ATA engine per port, for executing ATA commands. * each ATA engine operates on data in on-board RAM * one HDMA engine, for copying data between host RAM and board RAM * since there is only one HDMA engine but four ATA engines, its a bit of a bottleneck * no SATA controls, the board uses PATA chips with a SATA bridge * driver code uses a static memory layout I designed. This will need to be changed to a dynamic layout, most likely. I can certainly answer any questions about the driver, and can answer questions about the hardware when it pertains to information necessary to develop and maintain the open source driver. Jeff