Rainbow Electronics AT91CAP9S250A - Manual (Page 285)

285
6264A–CAP–21-May-07
AT91CAP9S500A/AT91CAP9S250A
26.3.4 DMAC Transfer Types
A DMAC transfer may consist of single or multi-buffers transfers. On successive buffers of a
multi-buffer transfer, the DMAC_SADDRx/DMAC_DADDRx registers in the DMAC are repro-
grammed using either of the following methods:
• Buffer chaining using linked lists
• Replay mode
• Contiguous address between buffers
On successive buffers of a multi-buffer transfer, the DMAC_CTRLAx and DMAC_CTRLBx regis-
ters in the DMAC are re-programmed using either of the following methods:
• Buffer chaining using linked lists
• Replay mode
When buffer chaining, using linked lists is the multi-buffer method of choice, and on successive
buffers, the DMAC_DSCRx register in the DMAC is re-programmed using the following method:
• Buffer chaining using linked lists
A buffer descriptor (LLI) consists of following registers, DMAC_SADDRx, DMAC_DADDRx,
DMAC_DSCRx, DMAC_CTRLAx, DMAC_CT RLBx.These registers, along with the
DMAC_CFGx register, are used by the DMAC to set up and describe the buffer transfer.
26.3.4.1 Multi-buffer Transfers
26.3.4.2 Buffer Chaining Using Linked Lists
In this case, the DMAC re-programs the channel registers prior to the start of each buffer by
fetching the buffer descriptor for that buffer from system memory. This is known as an LLI
update.
DMAC buffer chaining is supported by using a Descriptor Pointer register (DMAC_DSCRx) that
stores the address in memory of the next buffer descriptor. Each buffer descriptor contains the
corresponding buffer descriptor (DMAC_SADDRx, DMAC_DADDRx, DMAC_DSCRx,
DMAC_CTRLAx DMAC_CTRLBx).
To set up buffer chaining, a sequence of linked lists must be programmed in memory.
The DMAC_SADDRx, DMAC_DADDRx, DMAC_DSCRx, DMAC_CTRLAx and DMAC_CTRLBx
registers are fetched from system memory on an LLI update. The updated content of the
DMAC_CTRLAx register is written back to memory on buffer completion.
Figure 26-6 on page
286 shows how to use chained linked lists in memory to define multi-buffer transfers using buffer
chaining.
The Linked List multi-buffer transfer is initiated by programming DMAC_DSCRx with DSCRx(0)
(LLI(0) base address) and DMAC_CTRLBx register with both SRC_DSCR and DST_DSCR set
to 0. Other fields and registers are ignored and overwritten when the descriptor is retrieved from
memory.
The last transfer descriptor must be written to memory with its next descriptor address set to 0.