CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxdriverfpgapcidma
mksuth
mksuth

Reputation: 2029

Best way to transfer video data to a device over PCI in linux

I need to transfer video data to and from an FPGA device over PCI in a linux environment. I'm using a third party PCI master core on the FPGA. So far, I've implemented a simple DMA controller on the FPGA to transfer data from the FPGA to the CPU, using consecutive PCI write bursts.

Next, I need to transfer video data from the CPU to the FPGA. What is the best way to go about this?

Should I implement a module on the FPGA which performs a whole bunch of burst reads over PCI. Or is there a way to get the CPU to efficiently write data into the FPGA's memory using PCI write bursts?

My bandwidth requirements are around 30 MB/s in both directions.

Thanks.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 953

Answers (2)

benzaita
benzaita

Reputation: 13409

Sounds to me the FPGA should master both reads and writes. Otherwise you would hog the host CPU. That's a classic task for a DMA (and you cannot guarantee a DMA exists on every host).

Upvotes: 1

Limbeh
Limbeh

Reputation: 221

You could do posted writes from CPU like what video card drivers do but you'll need to have some driver magic such as setting MTRR (which means you might have some architectural dependency). If you want to be safe DMA read from FPGA is a better way to go. 30MB/s isn't much.

Upvotes: 2

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