Is i960RP non-compliant with PCI 2.1?

[bsugar@ambex-boulder.com (Bob Sugar)]

Hi,

First of all, I'm new to the PCI bus and this group so let me
appologize in advance if I'm covering old ground....  

I'm looking at using the i960RP 33MHz/5volt processor on an add-in
PC card.  After looking over the Intel specs (Oct'96) and the
errata (Dec'96), it looks like the i960RP is non-compliant in a
few areas:
                                  PCI 2.1     i960RP
                                  -------    -------
Minimum clock frequency:            0 MHz     16 MHz
Minimum data->clk setup time:       7 ns       8 ns
Maximum clk->data delay time:      11 ns      12 ns

[Re-generating the PCI clock for other chips on the add-in board is
also a problem, but I've found lots of previous discussions in the
sig archives - thanks for the great info!]

Am I missing something or is the i960RP really not 2.1 compliant
even though the datasheet clearly states that it is?

The PCI 2.1 system timing budget is (section 4.3.5 of PCI spec):
    11ns Tval  (output delay)
  +  7ns Tsu   (input setup)
  +  2ns Tskew (clock skew)
  + 10ns Tprop (bus propegation time)
 -------------
  =  30ns minimum clock period

The i960RP timings reduce Tprop to 8ns.  AmBex is in the RAID
subsystem business and the add-in PC card I'm designing will most
commonly go into high-end server boxes with heavily loaded PCI
buses.  In this application, is the reduced Tprop going to be a
problem?

Any other recomendations?

Thanks,

Bob Sugar
Senior Systems Engineer
AmBex Technologies, Inc.
Boulder Colorado
(303)448-8200
Ä