Chapter 8
Input/Output Overview
Conceptually, Alpha systems can consist of processors, memory, a
Figure 8–1 shows the Alpha system overview.
Figure 8–1: Alpha System Overview
I/O Device
Processor
Memory
Bridge
I/O Bus
I/O Device
I/O Device
As shown in Figure
A bridge connects an I/O bus to the system, either directly to the PMI or through another I/O bus. The I/O bus address space is available to the processor either directly or indirectly. Indi- rect access is provided through either an I/O mailbox or an I/O mapping mechanism. The I/O mapping mechanism includes provisions for mapping between PMI and I/O bus addresses and access to I/O bus operations.
Alpha I/O operations can include:
•Accesses between the processor and an I/O device across the PMI
•Accesses between the processor and an I/O device across an I/O bus
•DMA accesses — I/O devices initiating reads and writes to memory
•Processor interrupts requested by devices
•