ATM Controller and AAL0, AAL1, and AAL5
MPC8260 PowerQUICC II Family Reference Manual, Rev. 2
Freescale Semiconductor 30-5
30.2.1 Transmitter Overview
Before the transmitter is enabled, the host must initialize the PowerQUICCII and create the transmit data
structure, described in Section 30.10, “ATM Memory Structure.” When data is ready for transmission, the
host arranges the BD table and writes the pointer of the first BD in the transmit connection table (TCT).
The host issues an ATM TRANSMIT command, which inserts the current channel to the ATM pace control
(APC) unit. The APC unit controls the ATM traffic of the transmitter. It reads the traffic parameters of each
channel and divides the total bandwidth among them. The APC unit can pace the peak cell rate,
peak-and-sustain cell rate (GCRA traffic) or pe ak-and-minim um cell rate tr af fic. T he APC im plements up
to eight priority levels for servicing real-time channels before non-real-time channels.
The transmitter ATM cell is 53–65 bytes and includes 4 bytes of ATM cell header, a 1-byte HEC, and 48
bytes of payload. The HEC is a constant taken from FDSRx[0–15] when using UTOPIA 16 and from
FDSRx[8–15] when using UTOPIA 8; see Section 29.4, “FCC Data Synchronization Registers (FDSRx).”
User-defined cells (UDC mode) include an extra header of 1–12 bytes with an optional HEC octet. Cell
transfers use the UTOPIA level II, cell-level handshake.
Transmission starts when the APC schedules a channel. According to the channel code, the ATM controller
reads the channel’s entry in the TCT and opens the first BD for transmission. In auto-VC-off mode, the
APC automatically deactivates the current channel when no buffer is ready to trans mit. In t his case, a new
ATM TRANSMIT command is needed for transmission of the VC to resume.

30.2.1.1 AAL5 Transmitter Overview

The transmitter reads 48 bytes from the external buffer, adds the cell header, and sends the cell through the
UTOPIA interface. The transmitter adds any padding needed and appends the AAL5 trailer in the last cell
of the AAL5 frame. The trailer consists of CPCS-UU+CPI, data length, and CRC-32 as defined in ITU
I.363. The CPCS-UU+CPI (2-byte entry) can be specified by the user or optionally cleared by the
transmitter; see Section 30.10.2.3, “Transmit Connection Table (TCT).” The transmitter identifies the last
cell of the AAL5 message by setting the last (L) indication bit in the PTI field of the cell header. An
interrupt may be generated to indicate the end of the frame.
When the transmission of the current frame ends and no additional valid buffers are in the BD table, the
transmit process ends. The transmitter keeps polling the BD table every time this channel is scheduled to
transmit. Note that a buffer-not-ready indication during frame transmission aborts the frame transfer.

30.2.1.2 AAL1 Transmitter Overview

The PowerQUICC II supports both structured and unstructured AAL1 formats. For the unstructured
format, the transmitter reads 47 bytes from the external buffer and inserts them into the AAL1 user data
field. The AAL1 PDU header, which consists of the sequence number (SN) and the sequence number
protection (SNP) (CRC-3 and parity bit), is generated and inserted into the cell. The PowerQUICC II
supports synchronous residual time stamp (SRTS) generation using external PLL. If this mode is enabled,
the PowerQUICC II reads the SRTS code from the external logic and inserts it into four outgoing cells.
See Section 30.15, “SRTS Generation and Clock Recovery Using External Logic.”