Re: CPCI: RE: Message Signalled Interrupt Support

[Markus Leberecht <Markus.Leberecht@force.de>]

Folks,

I am certainly not speaking for the whole PICMG 2.14 group (and sorry for 
jumping in here, Sean) but since we talked about it here quite recently...

Personally, I think the 2.14 subcomittee should (and likely will) investigate 
MSI as a signaling mechanism for the multicomputing layer. Essentially, it 
seems that this is in fact *the* application for MSI. We need to take a closer 
look, though.

Markus Leberecht

"Somes, Richard" wrote:
> 
> Brroks, Brad, etc.
> 
> Take a look at Force's Sentinel technology.  It's a universal bridge which
> supports MSI, and it's being used on a PPC board capable of functioning in
> either system or peripheral slots.
> 
> So here's one hardware vendor with support.  See the following link:
> 
> http://www.forcecomputers.com/technology/sentinel/sentinel.htm
> 
> Sorry for the commercial, but it's responsive to the question.  Hopefully
> others will be equally unabashed in identifying products with MSI.
> 
> I'm not sure whether PICMG 2.14, the Multicomputing spec, identifies MSI as
> a signalling mechanism.  With the advent of real hardware supporting MSI, it
> should probably be considered.  Someone from the 2.14 crew with input?
> 
> Dick Somes
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lame Brooks-G14738 [mailto:brooks.lame@motorola.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 2:13 PM
> To: 'brad@pc2.com'
> Cc: 'PCISIGList'; PICMGCPCI Reflector (E-mail)
> Subject: CPCI: RE: Message Signalled Interrupt Support
> 
> MSI appears extremely useful in applications with many sources of interrupts
> in a device and/or many devices on the PCI bus.  It also looks useful in
> slave processor applications.  Motorola may use MSI in a new motherboard
> peripheral device currently under development.  However, I am a little out
> of touch with the current thoughts on MSI with CompactPCI
> peripheral/slave/multiple-host processors; so, you may look for some other
> PICMG guys to respond.
> --
> Brooks Lame'
> Crisis/Design Engineer,  Motorola Monterey Design Center
> brooks_lame@mcg.mot.com
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Brad Hosler [mailto:brad@pc2.com]
> > Sent: Sunday, 20 February, 2000 15:29
> > To: pci-sig@znyx.com
> > Subject: Message Signalled Interrupt Support
> >
> >
> > PCI 2.2 defines a Message Signalled Interrupt (MSI) feature,
> > to allow the
> > card
> > to issue an interrupt as a PCI write message.
> >
> > Its presenting a "who-comes-first" scenario.  There are SW
> > developers that
> > want to support this feature; however, they want to know if
> > there are IHV's
> > who are adding support to their cards.  If there is no IHV
> > interest, SW
> > support
> > may be pulled due to lack of validation.
> >
> > Are there any cards available or that will be available that
> > will support
> > the MSI capability?
> >
> >
> >
> >

-- 
Dr. Markus Leberecht               Staff Engineer Software
FORCE COMPUTERS GmbH          http://www.forcecomputers.de
Prof.- Messerschmitt-Strasse 1, D-85579 Neubiberg, Germany 
phone: +49-89-60814-0                fax: +49-89-60814-376