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From: Eliot Courtney <ecourtney@nvidia.com>
To: "Danilo Krummrich" <dakr@kernel.org>,
	"Alice Ryhl" <aliceryhl@google.com>,
	"Daniel Almeida" <daniel.almeida@collabora.com>,
	"Miguel Ojeda" <ojeda@kernel.org>,
	"Boqun Feng" <boqun@kernel.org>, "Gary Guo" <gary@garyguo.net>,
	"Björn Roy Baron" <bjorn3_gh@protonmail.com>,
	"Benno Lossin" <lossin@kernel.org>,
	"Andreas Hindborg" <a.hindborg@kernel.org>,
	"Trevor Gross" <tmgross@umich.edu>,
	"Tamir Duberstein" <tamird@kernel.org>,
	"Alexandre Courbot" <acourbot@nvidia.com>,
	"Onur Özkan" <work@onurozkan.dev>,
	"Yury Norov" <yury.norov@gmail.com>,
	"David Airlie" <airlied@gmail.com>,
	"Simona Vetter" <simona@ffwll.ch>,
	"Maarten Lankhorst" <maarten.lankhorst@linux.intel.com>,
	"Maxime Ripard" <mripard@kernel.org>,
	"Thomas Zimmermann" <tzimmermann@suse.de>,
	"Jonathan Corbet" <corbet@lwn.net>,
	"Shuah Khan" <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: driver-core@lists.linux.dev, rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org,
	 linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, nova-gpu@lists.linux.dev,
	 dri-devel@lists.freedesktop.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
	 Eliot Courtney <ecourtney@nvidia.com>,
	 Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
Subject: [PATCH 09/12] docs: gpu: nova-core: Document the PRAMIN aperture mechanism
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:44:56 +0900	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260805-pramin-split-v1-9-ff3e84a75dac@nvidia.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260805-pramin-split-v1-0-ff3e84a75dac@nvidia.com>

From: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>

Add documentation for the PRAMIN aperture mechanism used by nova-core
for direct VRAM access.

Nova only uses TARGET=VRAM for VRAM access. The SYS_MEM target values
are documented for completeness but not used by the driver.

Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
[ecourtney: fix the TARGET encodings, KiB/MiB units, wording nits]
[ecourtney: wrap at 80 columns]
Signed-off-by: Eliot Courtney <ecourtney@nvidia.com>
---
 Documentation/gpu/nova/core/pramin.rst | 128 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst       |   1 +
 2 files changed, 129 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/pramin.rst b/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/pramin.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f50b052d73ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/pramin.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=========================
+PRAMIN aperture mechanism
+=========================
+
+.. note::
+   The following description is approximate and current as of the Ampere
+   family. It may change for future generations and is intended to assist in
+   understanding the driver code.
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+PRAMIN is a hardware aperture mechanism that provides CPU access to GPU Video
+RAM (VRAM) before the GPU's Memory Management Unit (MMU) and page tables are
+initialized. This 1 MiB sliding window, located at a fixed offset within BAR0,
+is essential for setting up page tables and other critical GPU data structures
+without relying on the GPU's MMU.
+
+Architecture Overview
+=====================
+
+The PRAMIN aperture mechanism is logically implemented by the GPU's PBUS (PCIe
+Bus Controller Unit) and provides a CPU-accessible window into VRAM through the
+PCIe interface::
+
+    +-----------------+    PCIe     +------------------------------+
+    |      CPU        |<----------->|           GPU                |
+    +-----------------+             |                              |
+                                    |  +----------------------+    |
+                                    |  |       PBUS           |    |
+                                    |  |  (Bus Controller)    |    |
+                                    |  |                      |    |
+                                    |  |  +--------------+ <------------ [1]
+                                    |  |  |   PRAMIN     |    |    |
+                                    |  |  |   Window     |    |    |
+                                    |  |  |   (1 MiB)    |    |    |
+                                    |  |  +--------------+    |    |
+                                    |  |         |            |    |
+                                    |  +---------|------------+    |
+                                    |            |                 |
+                                    |            v                 |
+                                    |  +----------------------+ <------- [2]
+                                    |  |       VRAM           |    |
+                                    |  |    (Several GiB)     |    |
+                                    |  |                      |    |
+                                    |  |   FB[0x0000000000]   |    |
+                                    |  |          ...         |    |
+                                    |  |   FB[0xFFFFFFFFFF]   |    |
+                                    |  +----------------------+    |
+                                    +------------------------------+
+
+    [1] Window starts at BAR0 + 0x700000.
+    [2] Program PRAMIN to any 64 KiB-aligned VRAM boundary.
+
+PBUS is responsible for, among other things, handling MMIO
+accesses to the BAR registers.
+
+PRAMIN Window Operation
+=======================
+
+The PRAMIN window provides a 1 MiB sliding aperture that can be repositioned
+over the entire VRAM address space using the ``NV_PBUS_BAR0_WINDOW`` register.
+
+Window Control Mechanism
+-------------------------
+
+::
+
+    NV_PBUS_BAR0_WINDOW Register (0x1700):
+    +-------+--------+--------------------------------------+
+    | 31:26 | 25:24  |               23:0                   |
+    | RSVD  | TARGET |            BASE_ADDR                 |
+    |       |        |        (bits 39:16 of VRAM address)  |
+    +-------+--------+--------------------------------------+
+
+    The 24-bit BASE_ADDR field encodes bits [39:16] of the target VRAM address,
+    providing 40-bit (1 TiB) address space coverage with 64 KiB alignment.
+
+    TARGET field (bits 25:24):
+    - 0x0: VRAM (Video Memory)
+    - 0x1: Reserved (unused)
+    - 0x2: SYS_MEM_COH (Coherent System Memory)
+    - 0x3: SYS_MEM_NONCOH (Non-coherent System Memory)
+
+.. note::
+   Nova only uses TARGET=VRAM (0x0) for video memory access. The SYS_MEM
+   target values are documented here for hardware completeness but are
+   not used by the driver.
+
+64 KiB Alignment Requirement
+----------------------------
+
+The PRAMIN window must be aligned to 64 KiB boundaries in VRAM. This is enforced
+by the ``BASE_ADDR`` field representing bits [39:16] of the target address::
+
+    VRAM Address Calculation:
+    actual_vram_addr = (BASE_ADDR << 16) + pramin_offset
+    Where:
+    - BASE_ADDR: 24-bit value from NV_PBUS_BAR0_WINDOW[23:0]
+    - pramin_offset: 20-bit offset within the PRAMIN window [0x00000-0xFFFFF]
+
+    Example Window Positioning:
+    +---------------------------------------------------------+
+    |                    VRAM Space                           |
+    |                                                         |
+    |  0x0000000000 +-----------------+ <-- 64 KiB aligned    |
+    |               | PRAMIN Window   |                       |
+    |               |    (1 MiB)      |                       |
+    |  0x00000FFFFF +-----------------+                       |
+    |                                                         |
+    |       |              ^                                  |
+    |       |              | Window can slide                 |
+    |       v              | to any 64 KiB-aligned boundary   |
+    |                                                         |
+    |  0x0123400000 +-----------------+ <-- 64 KiB aligned    |
+    |               | PRAMIN Window   |                       |
+    |               |    (1 MiB)      |                       |
+    |  0x01234FFFFF +-----------------+                       |
+    |                                                         |
+    |                       ...                               |
+    |                                                         |
+    |  0xFFFFF00000 +-----------------+ <-- 64 KiB aligned    |
+    |               | PRAMIN Window   |                       |
+    |               |    (1 MiB)      |                       |
+    |  0xFFFFFFFFFF +-----------------+                       |
+    +---------------------------------------------------------+
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst
index 1783513cbd05..5ebbfd76fdac 100644
--- a/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst
@@ -33,3 +33,4 @@ vGPU manager VFIO driver and the nova-drm driver.
    core/fsp
    core/fwsec
    core/falcon
+   core/pramin

-- 
2.55.0


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-08-05  5:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-08-05  5:44 [PATCH 00/12] gpu: nova-core: add PRAMIN window support Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 01/12] rust: io: add Region::try_subregion Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05 10:43   ` Gary Guo
2026-08-07  5:39     ` Eliot Courtney
2026-08-07 14:03     ` Alexandre Courbot
2026-08-07 14:09       ` Gary Guo
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 02/12] rust: num: reject Bounded::shr overshifts at build time Eliot Courtney
2026-08-07 14:03   ` Alexandre Courbot
2026-08-07 17:12     ` Miguel Ojeda
2026-08-07 19:14   ` Gary Guo
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 03/12] rust: num: add Bounded::shr_exact Eliot Courtney
2026-08-07 14:04   ` Alexandre Courbot
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 04/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Add VramAddress type Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 05/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Implement Alignable and Debug for VramAddress Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 06/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Add PRAMIN window registers Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 07/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Add the memory management HAL Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 08/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Add support to use PRAMIN windows to write to VRAM Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` Eliot Courtney [this message]
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 10/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Add GpuMm centralized memory manager Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 11/12] gpu: nova-core: Add self-test assertion macros and config option Eliot Courtney
2026-08-05  5:44 ` [PATCH 12/12] gpu: nova-core: mm: Add PRAMIN aperture self-tests Eliot Courtney

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