EP80579 Datasheet, PDF (134/1916 Pages) Intel Corporation – Intel® EP80579 Integrated Processor Product Line

Intel^® EP80579 Integrated Processor
4.3
Inter-Agent Signaling
Signals may originate from a number of sources within the system but may only target
one of the on-die agents in the EP80579: the IA-32 core or AIOC accelerator. This
section considers inter-agent signaling mechanisms available in the EP80579. This
material looks at signaling in isolation.
.
Figure 4-2.
Because the EP80579 integrates devices from several different fabrics, signaling
between different agents may require bridge functionality to convert signals between
the various existing capabilities that Section 4.2, “Existing Signaling Capabilities” on
page 132 describes. Figure 4-2 presents a logical view of the flow of signals through
the EP80579.
Logical View of Signaling Flow
Source
Agent
In- or side-band
signal from
Source Agent
Signal Bridge
Signal for Destination
Agent in Destination
Format
Destination
Agent
Table 4-1.
In this model, a signal originates from a source agent as an in- or side-band signal.
Depending on the specific situation, the signal may either reach the destination directly
or through a signal bridge. The signal bridge in EP80579 does not provide any
mechanism to ensure that a destination agent responds to a given inbound signal. As a
result, software must be able to keep up with the signaling rates if catching and
processing every signal is a requirement. If software is unable to keep up with the
signaling rate, one or more signals can be dropped.
Table 4-1 summarizes the cross product of the combinations of producer and consumer
agents that EP80579 supports for signaling between agents. This table identifies the
types of signaling allowed as well as any bridging that the EP80579 hardware must
provide to support signaling between the indicated agents.
Supported Inter-Agent Signaling
Signal Bridging
IA-32 core
IMCH, IICH Devices
GigE MAC
SSP
CAN
1588
Errors^b
External PCI Express* Device
External Local Expansion Bus Device
On-Die Signal Consumer
IA-32 core
Not Supported^a
PCI MSI / INTx via PCI
Side band: PCI MSI / INTx
Side band: PCI MSI / INTx
Side band: PCI MSI / INTx
Side band: PCI MSI / INTx
Side band: PCI MSI / INTx
PCI MSI / INTx via PCI
MSI / INTx via GPIO
a. Support not required since there is only one such agent in an EP80579.
b. This includes signaling for errors in the memory controller, local expansion bus, etc.
Intel^® EP80579 Integrated Processor Product Line Datasheet
134
August 2009
Order Number: 320066-003US