Hardware Reference Manual 275
Intel® IXP2800 Network Processor
Media and Switch Fabric Interface
8.5 CSIX Flow Control Interface
This section describes the Flow Control Interface. Section8.2 and Section 8 .3 of this chapter also
contain descriptions of how those functions interact with Flow Control. There are two modes —
Full Duplex, where flow control information goes from Egress IXP2800 Network Processor to the
Ingress IXP2800 Network Processor, and Simplex mode, where the information from the Switch
Fabric is sent directly to the Ingress IXP2800 Network Processor, and from the Egress IXP2800
Network Processor to the Switch Fabric.

8.5.1 TXCSRB and RXCSRB Signals

TXCSRB and RXCSRB are used only in Full Duplex mode. (See Figure 97.) They send
information from the Egress to the Ingress IXP2800 Network Processor for two reasons:
1. Pass the CSIX Ready Field (link-level flow control) from the Switch Fabric to the Ingress
IXP2800. The information is used by the Ingress IXP2800’s transmit control logic to stop
transmission of CFrames to the Switch Fabric.
2. Set the value of the Ready field sent from the Ingress IXP2800 to the Switch Fabric. This is to
inform the Switch Fabric to stop transmitting CFrames to the Egress IXP2800, based on
receive buffer resource availability in the Egress IXP2800.
Remove data from
element
Microcode moves data from the element to DRAM
using the dram[rbuf_rd] instruction and to
Microengine registers using the msf[read]
instruction.
Hardware transmits information from the element to
the Tx pins. Transmission of elements is in FIFO
order within each partition; that is an element will be
transmitted only when all preceding elements in that
partition have been transmitted.
Choice of element to transmit among partitions is
round-robin.
Return element to
Free List
Microcode writes to Rx_Element_Done with the
number of the element to free.
Microengine software uses the TX_Sequence_n
CSRs to track elements that have been transmitted.
Table 102. Summary of RBUF and TBUF Operations (Sheet 2 of 2)
Operation RBUF TBUF
Figure 97. CSIX Flow Control Interface — TXCSRB and RXCSRB
A9762-01
TDAT
RXCSRB
Link Level Flow Control
TXCSRB
RDAT
FC_Ingress_Status
CSR
Ingress
Intel
®
IXP2800
Network Processor
Egress
Intel IXP2800
Network Processor
Switch
Fabric
FC_Egress_Status
CSR
TBUF