Intel IQ31244 user manual Rotation Scheme of the PAL Arbitration Circuit, Priority Description

Intel® IQ31244 Customer Reference Board

2.1PAL Arbitration Circuit

The IQ31244 provides a Programmable Analog Logic (PAL) arbitration circuit on the primary PCI-X bus. A rotating priority arbitration scheme with a host and three agents is used. The priority rotates as shown in Table 7. The arbiter evaluates all requests and grants the bus to the highest- priority requesting device. On reset, the host is granted the bus, and agent 0 (PCI-X bridge) has the next-highest priority.

Table 7. Rotation Scheme of the PAL Arbitration Circuit

Priority		Description
Host	Intel® 80321	I/O Processor
0	Intel® 31154 133 MHz PCI Bridge
1	Expansion slot
2	Intel® 82546	Dual-Port Gigabit Ethernet Controller

When an agent is “skipped”, priority is not returned to that agent until the next passing cycle. This means that the agent is dropped from the highest priority to the lowest priority.

The arbiter has a time-out feature that functions as follows. Any PCI master which has requested the bus, but has not started an access within 16 clocks of receiving a grant, is assumed to be broken and the grant is rescinded.

When the PCI bus arbiter receives a request for the bus and there are currently no active transactions on the bus, the arbiter immediately grants ownership to the requester.

When two or more requests are active, the bus is granted to the requester with the higher priority. This approach ensures that all requesters are able to gain access to the bus in a reasonable time and that a high-bandwidth PCI adapter cannot starve all other requesters off the bus. This arbitration scheme conforms to the fairness doctrine described in the PCI Bus Specification, Revision 2.2.

The arbiter also implements bus parking. After a transaction is complete, if there are no requests for the bus, the arbiter parks the bus at the last owner. When that device wishes to begin another PCI transaction, it may do so without first requesting the bus. When another device requests the bus, the arbiter can immediately remove bus ownership from the idle device where it is parked. After reset or power-up the PCI bus is parked at the host.

Highest arbitration priority is given to the host immediately succeeding the bus owner, active or parked. Bus ownership is passed to the host with the next-highest priority and with an active bus request.

User’s Manual 15