resume incrementing the poll time counter. If the trans-
mit descriptor OWN bit has a value of 1, the Am79C978
controller will begin filling the FIFO with transmit data
and initiate a transmission. This end-of-operation poll
coupled with the TDTE lookahead operation allows the
Am79C978 controller to avoid inserting poll time counts
between successive transmit frames.
lowing this poll, and regardless of the outcome of this
poll, transfers of receive data from the FIFO may begin.
Regardless of ownership of the second receive de-
scriptor, the Am79C978 controller will continue to per-
form receive data DMA transfers to the first buffer. If the
frame length exceeds the length of the first buffer, and
the Am79C978 controller does not own the second
buffer, ownership of the current descriptor will be
passed back to the system by writing a 0 to the OWN
bit of RMD1. Status will be written indicating buffer
(BUFF = 1) and possibly overflow (OFLO = 1) errors.
By default, whenever the Am79C978 controller com-
pletes a transmit frame (either with or without error)
and writes the status information to the current descrip-
tor, then the TINT bit of CSR0 is set to indicate the com-
pletion of a transmission. This causes an interrupt
signal if the IENA bit of CSR0 has been set and the
TINTM bit of CSR3 is cleared. TheAm79C978 control-
ler provides two modes to reduce the number of trans-
mit interrupts. The interrupt of a successfully
transmitted frame can be suppressed by setting TIN-
TOKD (CSR5, bit 15) to 1. Another mode, which is en-
abled by setting LTINTEN (CSR5, bit 14) to 1, allows
suppression of interrupts for successful transmissions
for all but the last frame in a sequence.
If the frame length exceeds the length of the first (cur-
rent) buffer, and the Am79C978 controller does own
the second (next) buffer, ownership will be passed
back to the system by writing a 0 to the OWN bit of
RMD1 when the first buffer is full. The OWN bit is the
only bit modified in the descriptor. Receive data trans-
fers to the second buffer may occur before the
Am79C978 controller proceeds to look ahead to the
ownership of the third buffer. Such action will depend
upon the state of the FIFO when the OWN bit has been
updated in the first descriptor. In any case, lookahead
will be performed to the third buffer and the information
gathered will be stored in the chip, regardless of the
state of the ownership bit.
Receive Descriptor Table Entry
If the Am79C978 controller does not own both the cur-
rent and the next Receive Descriptor Table Entry
(RDTE), then the Am79C978 controller will continue to
poll according to the polling sequence described
above. If the receive descriptor ring length is one, then
there is no next descriptor to be polled.
This activity continues until the Am79C978 controller
recognizes the completion of the frame (the last byte of
this receive message has been removed from the
FIFO). TheAm79C978 controller will subsequently up-
date the current RDTE status with the end of frame
(ENP) indication set, write the message byte count
(MCNT) for the entire frame into RMD2, and overwrite
the “current” entries in the CSRs with the “next” entries.
If a poll operation has revealed that the current and the
next RDTE belong to the Am79C978 controller, then
additional poll accesses are not necessary. Future poll
operations will not include RDTE accesses as long as
the Am79C978 controller retains ownership of the cur-
rent and the next RDTE.
Receive Frame Queuing
When receive activity is present on the channel, the
Am79C978 controller waits for the complete address of
the message to arrive. It then decides whether to ac-
cept or reject the frame based on all active addressing
schemes. If the frame is accepted, the Am79C978 con-
troller checks the current receive buffer status register
CRST (CSR41) to determine the ownership of the cur-
rent buffer.
TheAm79C978 controller supports the lack of RDTEs
when SRAM (SRAM SIZE in BCR 25, bits 7-0) is en-
abled through the Receive Frame Queuing mecha-
nism. When the SRAM SIZE = 0, then the Am79C978
controller reverts back to the PCnet-PCI II mode of op-
eration. This operation is automatic and does not re-
quire any programming by the host. When SRAM is
enabled, the Receive Frame Queuing mechanism al-
lows a slow protocol to manage more frames without
the high frame loss rate normally attributed to FIFO-
based network controllers.
If ownership is lacking, the Am79C978 controller will
immediately perform a final poll of the current RDTE. If
ownership is still denied, the Am79C978 controller has
no buffer in which to store the incoming message. The
MISS bit will be set in CSR0 and the Missed Frame
Counter (CSR112) will be incremented. Another poll of
the current RDTE will not occur until the frame has fin-
ished.
TheAm79C978 controller will store the incoming
frames in the extended FIFOs until polling takes place,
if enabled and it discovers it owns an RDTE. The stored
frames are not altered in any way until written out into
system buffers. When the receive FIFO overflows, fur-
ther incoming receive frames will be missed during that
time. As soon as the network receive FIFO is empty, in-
coming frames are processed as normal. Status on a
per frame basis is not kept during the overflow process.
If the Am79C978 controller sees that the last poll (ei-
ther a normal poll, or the final effort described in the
above paragraph) of the current RDTE shows valid
ownership, it proceeds to a poll of the next RDTE. Fol-
64
Am79C978
AMD [ AMD ]
