Revision 5.03 – June 14, 2006
S5320 – PCI Match Maker: Mailbox Overview
Data Sheet
Mailbox Interrupts
Although polling status is useful in some cases, polling requires continuous actions by the processor. Mailbox inter-
rupt capabilities are provided to avoid much of the processor overhead required by continuously polling status bits.
The Add-On and PCI interface can each generate interrupts on the incoming mailbox condition and/or the outgoing
mailbox condition. These can be individual enabled/disabled. A specific byte in the incoming mailbox and outgoing
mailbox is identified to generate the interrupt(s). The tasks required to setup the mailbox interrupts are as follows:
Enabling PCI Mailbox Interrupts:
1. Enable PCI outgoing mailbox interrupts. A specific byte within the outgoing mailboxes is identified to assert
INTA# when read by the Add-On interface.
INTCSR
INTCSR
Bit 4
Enable outgoing mailbox interrupts
Bits 1:0
Identify mailbox byte to generate interrupt
2. Enable PCI incoming mailbox interrupts. A specific byte within the incoming mailboxes is identified to assert
INTA# when written by the Add-On interface.
INTCSR
INTCSR
Bit 12
Enable incoming mailbox interrupts
Bits 9:8
Identify mailbox byte to generate interrupt
Enabling Add-On Mailbox Interrupts:
1. Enable Add-On outgoing mailbox interrupts. A specific byte within the outgoing mailboxes is identified to
assert IRQ# when read by the PCI interface.
AINT
AINT
Bit 12
Enable outgoing mailbox interrupts
Bits 9:8
Identify mailbox byte to generate interrupt
2. Enable Add-On incoming mailbox interrupts. A specific byte within the incoming mailboxes is identified to
assert IRQ# when written by the PCI interface.
AINT
AINT
Bit 4
Enable incoming mailbox interrupts
Bits 1:0
Identify mailbox byte to generate interrupt
With either the Add-On or PCI interface, these two steps can be performed with a single access to the appropriate
register. They are shown separately here for clarity.
Once interrupts are enabled, the interrupt service routine must access the mailboxes and clear the interrupt
source. A particular application may not require all of the steps shown. For instance, a design may only use the
incoming mailbox interrupts and not require support for the outgoing mailbox interrupts. The interrupt service rou-
tine tasks are as follows:
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