PCI Bridge
MPC8260 PowerQUICC II Family Reference Manual, Rev. 2
Freescale Semiconductor 9-95
9.13.2 DMA Segment Descriptors
DMA segment descriptors contain the source and destination addresses of the data segment, the segment
byte count, and a link to the next descriptor. Segment descriptors are built on cache-line (32-byte)
boundaries in either 60x or PCI memory and are linked together into chains using the
next-descriptor-address field.
Application software initializes the current descriptor address register (DMACDARx) to point to the first
descriptor in the chain. For each descriptor in the chain, the DM A controller starts a new DMA transfer
with the control parameters specified by the descriptor. The DMA controller traverses the descriptor chain
until reaching the last descriptor (with its EOTD bit set).
Table9- 73. DMA Segment Descriptor Fields
Descriptor Field Description
Source address Contains the source address of the DMA transfer. After the DMA controller reads the
descriptor from memory, this field will be loaded into the source address register. For the bit
definition, refer to Section9.13.1.6.4, “DMA Source Address Register [0–3] (DMASARx).”
Destination address Contains the destination address of the DMA transfer. After the DMA controller reads the
descriptor from memor y, this field will be loaded into the destination address register. For the
bit definition, refer to Section9.13.1.6.5, “DMA Destination Address Register [0–3]
(DMADARx).”
Next descriptor address Points to the next descriptor in memory. After the DMA controller reads the descriptor from
memory, this field will be loaded into the next descriptor address register. For the bit definition,
refer to Section 9.13.1.6.7, “DMA Next Descriptor Address Register [0–3] (DMANDARx).”
Byte count Contains the number of bytes to transfer. After the DMA controller reads the descriptor from
memory, this field will be loaded into the byte count register. For the bit definition, refer to
Section9.13.1.6.6, “DMA Byte Count Register [0–3] (DMABCRx).”