RE: Is is possible to receive a cheep SubVendorID?

["Brian Small" <small@quicklogic.com>]

Dave,

Are you sure you are correct about this?

I think the way it works is:

The PCI configuration space has 4 fields:

1. Vendor ID
2. Device ID

3. Subsystem Vendor ID
4. Subsystem ID

I believe the first two are supposed to uniquely
identify the primary PCI interface chip.  And the second two are supposed to
uniquely identify the board.

Vendor ID and Subsystem Vendor ID must be
assigned by the PCI SIG.  They come from the same basket of numbers (so the
same ID may be in both fields if the same vendor makes both the chip and the
board).

Device ID and Subsystem ID must be unique by
board, but that can be guaranteed by the
owner of the Vendor ID and Subsystem Vendor ID
respectively (not by the PCI SIG).

So optionally, companies which own Vendor IDs,
may choose to allow other companies to use
their Vendor ID, and have a unique Device ID
or Subsystem ID.

Gee - does that make it any less confusing?

- Brian Small

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave New [mailto:NewD@esi.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 11:33 AM
> To: 'F.Pitzl'; PCISIG List (E-mail)
> Subject: RE: Is is possible to receive a cheep SubVendorID?
>
>
> Actually a VendorID (not Sub) is what you would receive for
> a PCISIG membership.
>
> You can usually get a SubVendorID from a chip provider.  For
> instance, if you use the AMCC5933, you can let the VendorID
> default to AMCC's, then register a new SubVendorID with AMCC
> (using the handy tear-out card they provide in their data
> book).  Then, your adapter would be uniquely identified by
> the combination of AMCC's VendorID and your (AMCC-vended)
> SubVendorID.
>
> There was an attempt in the past by a certain operating system
> company (who shall remain nameless, except that their
> name starts with Micro and ends with Soft 8-) to force
> vendors that wanted a Windows logo on their box to have
> a unique VendorID for each different board.  This idea,
> fortunately, was laid to rest, and I don't believe that
> they ever tried to enforce such a scheme.  The PCI spec
> certainly doesn't require it.  The problem was that
> there were a number of video board vendors that were
> using a VGA chipset that had a fixed VendorID and an
> unsupported SubVendorID, but each board maker was varying
> the chipset implementation on their boards (for market
> differentiation, among other things, or to just be
> ornery, for all I know 8-).  This made if difficult
> for video drivers to find a particular maker's board,
> and identify any extensions (TV out, etc) that had
> been implemented on that board.
>
> In the meantime, most of those old video chipsets have
> bit the dust, and most ones I know of these days support
> a programmable (usually from a serial eeprom or similar)
> SubVendorID field.  Again, you would get the SubVendorID
> from a registration authority at the chip vendor, be it
> ATI or C&T or whomever.
>
> Hopefully this makes things a little clearer.  It would
> help to know what genre of board you are thinking of doing,
> so that one or more of the companies that hang out on this
> list could tell you about the way they handle SubVendorID
> assignments for their customers.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- DaveN
>
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> Dave New, NewD@elcsci.com    | Machine vision?
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: F.Pitzl [mailto:F.Pitzl@GMX.DE]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 1:45 PM
> To: PCISIG List (E-mail)
> Subject: Is is possible to receive a cheep SubVendorID?
>
>
> Hello Experts,
>
> This is a commercial question, but I hope you have some suggestions to
> my problem. We are a small supplier of automatic test systems. For our
> new product we want to use a PCI interface card between the PC and
> our application. Now my problem is that I was told, the only way to
> receive a SubVendorID is to become, at least one year, a member of
> the PCISIG. This means the minimal tax we have to pay are about
> $2500 - not really acceptable for a product quantity of 50 cards per
> year.
> Do you have any suggestions to a cheaper way to receive the
> SubVendorID
> ?
> Or do you mention to violate the specs and to use a unofficial
> SubVendorID?
>
> Regards,
> Florian Pitzl
>