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SYM(4)			     Kernel Interfaces Manual			  SYM(4)

NAME
     sym -- NCR/Symbios/LSI Logic 53C8XX PCI SCSI host adapter driver

SYNOPSIS
     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your
     kernel configuration file:

	   device pci
	   device scbus
	   device sym

     To disable PCI parity checking (needed for broken bridges):
     options SYM_SETUP_PCI_PARITY=<boolean>

     To control driver probing against HVD buses:
     options SYM_SETUP_SCSI_DIFF=<bit combination>

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the
     following line in loader.conf(5):

	   sym_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION
     This driver provides support for the Symbios/LSI Logic 53C8XX PCI SCSI con-
     trollers.

     Driver  features  include	support for wide SCSI busses and fast10, fast20,
     fast40 and fast80-dt synchronous data transfers depending on controller ca-
     pabilities.  It also provides generic SCSI features such as tagged  command
     queueing  and auto-request sense.	This driver is configured by default for
     a maximum of 446 outstanding commands per bus, 8 LUNs  per  target  and  64
     tagged  tasks  per LUN.  These numbers are not so much limited by design as
     they are considered reasonable values for current SCSI  technology.   These
     values  can be increased by changing appropriate constants in driver header
     files (not recommended).

     This driver supports the entire Symbios 53C8XX  family  of  PCI  SCSI  con-
     trollers.	 It  also  offers  the	advantage  of architectural improvements
     available only with newer chips.

     sym notably handles phase mismatch from SCRIPTS for  the  53C896,	53C895A,
     and  53C1010  cores.  As a result, it guarantees that no more than 1 inter-
     rupt per IO completion is delivered  to  the  CPU,  and  that  the  SCRIPTS
     processor is never stalled waiting for CPU attention in normal situations.

     sym  also	uses  LOAD/STORE SCRIPTS instructions for chips that support it.
     Only the early 810, 815 and 825 NCR chips do not support  LOAD/STORE.   Use
     of  LOAD/STORE instead of MEMORY MOVE allows SCRIPTS to access IO registers
     internal to the chip (no external PCI cycles).  As  a  result,  the  driver
     guarantees  that  no  PCI	self-mastering will occur for chips that support
     LOAD/STORE.

     LOAD/STORE instructions are also faster than MEMORY MOVE  because	they  do
     not involve the chip DMA FIFO and are coded on 2 DWORDs instead of 3.

     For  the  early  NCR  810,  815  and  825 chips, the driver uses a separate
     SCRIPTS set that uses MEMORY MOVE instructions for data movements.  This is
     because LOAD/STORE are not supported by these chips.

     HVD/LVD capable controllers (895, 895A, 896, and 897) report the actual bus
     mode in the STEST4 chip IO registers.  This feature allows  the  driver  to
     safely  probe  against bus mode and to set up the chip accordingly.  By de-
     fault the driver only supports HVD for these chips.  For other  chips  that
     can  support HVD but not LVD, the driver has to probe implementation depen-
     dent registers (GPIO) in order to detect HVD bus mode.  Only HVD  implemen-
     tations  that conform with Symbios Logic recommendations can be detected by
     the driver.  When the SYM_SETUP_SCSI_DIFF kernel option is assigned a value
     of 1, the driver will also probe against HVD for 825a,  875,  876	and  885
     chips, assuming Symbios Logic compatible implementation of HVD.

     When the SYM_SETUP_PCI_PARITY is assigned a value of 0, the driver will not
     enable  PCI parity checking for 53C8XX devices.  PCI parity checking should
     not be an option for PCI SCSI controllers, but some systems have  been  re-
     ported  to fail using 53C8XX chips, due to spurious or permanent PCI parity
     errors detected.  This option is supplied for convenience but it is neither
     recommended nor supported.

     This driver offers other options that are not  currently  exported  to  the
     user.   They  are	defined  and  documented  in the sym_conf.h driver file.
     Changing these options is	not  recommended  unless  absolutely  necessary.
     Some  of  these  options are planned to be exported through sysctl(3) or an
     equivalent mechanism in a future driver releases and therefore, no compati-
     bility is guaranteed.

     At initialization, the driver tries to detect and read user  settings  from
     controller NVRAM.	The Symbios/Logic NVRAM layout and the Tekram NVRAM lay-
     out  are  currently  supported.   If the reading of the NVRAM succeeds, the
     following settings are taken into account and reported to CAM:

     Host settings	     Symbios	Tekram
     SCSI parity checking    Y		N
     Host SCSI ident	     Y		Y
     Verbose messages	     Y		N
     Scan targets hi-lo      Y		N
     Avoid SCSI bus reset    Y		N

     Device settings	   Symbios    Tekram
     Synchronous period    Y	      Y
     SCSI bus width	   Y	      Y
     Queue tag enable	   Y	      Y
     Number of tags	   NA	      Y
     Disconnect enable	   Y	      Y
     Scan at boot time	   Y	      N
     Scan LUN		   Y	      N

     Devices that are configured as disabled for 'scan' in the NVRAM are not re-
     ported to CAM at system start-up.	They can be discovered later  using  the
     `camcontrol rescan' command.

     The  table  below	summarizes  the  main  features  and capabilities of the
     NCR/Symbios/LSI Logic 53C8XX family of PCI SCSI controllers.

     Chip	   Sync    Width   SRAM   PCI64   Supported
     sym53c810	   10MHz   8Bit    N	  N	  Y
     sym53c810a    10MHz   8Bit    N	  N	  Y
     sym53c815	   10MHz   8Bit    N	  N	  Y
     sym53c825	   10MHz   16Bit   N	  N	  Y
     sym53c825a    10MHz   16Bit   4KB	  N	  Y
     sym53c860	   20MHz   8Bit    N	  N	  Y
     sym53c875	   20MHz   16Bit   4KB	  N	  Y
     sym53c876	   20MHz   16Bit   4KB	  N	  Y
     sym53c885	   20MHz   16Bit   4KB	  N	  Y
     sym53c895	   40MHz   16Bit   4KB	  N	  Y
     sym53c895A    40MHz   16Bit   8KB	  N	  Y
     sym53c896	   40MHz   16Bit   8KB	  Y	  Y
     sym53c897	   40MHz   16Bit   8KB	  Y	  Y
     sym53c1510D   40MHz   16Bit   4KB	  Y	  Y
     sym53c1010    80MHz   16Bit   8KB	  Y	  Y

HARDWARE
     The sym driver provides support for the  following  Symbios/LSI  Logic  PCI
     SCSI controllers:

     *	 53C810
     *	 53C810A
     *	 53C815
     *	 53C825
     *	 53C825A
     *	 53C860
     *	 53C875
     *	 53C876
     *	 53C895
     *	 53C895A
     *	 53C896
     *	 53C897
     *	 53C1000
     *	 53C1000R
     *	 53C1010-33
     *	 53C1010-66
     *	 53C1510D

     The  SCSI	controllers supported by sym can be either embedded on a mother-
     board, or on one of the following add-on boards:

     *	 ASUS SC-200, SC-896
     *	 Data Technology DTC3130 (all variants)
     *	 DawiControl DC2976UW
     *	 Diamond FirePort (all)
     *	 NCR cards (all)
     *	 Symbios cards (all)
     *	 Tekram DC390W, 390U, 390F, 390U2B, 390U2W, 390U3D, and 390U3W
     *	 Tyan S1365

MISC
     The DEC KZPCA-AA is a rebadged SYM8952U.

SEE ALSO
     cd(4), da(4), sa(4), scsi(4), camcontrol(8)

HISTORY
     The sym driver appeared in FreeBSD 4.0.

AUTHORS
     The sym driver was written by Gerard Roudier and is derived from the  Linux
     sym53c8xx	driver	from  the  same author.  The sym53c8xx driver is derived
     from the ncr53c8xx driver, which was ported from the FreeBSD ncr(4)  driver
     to  Linux-1.2.13.	 The  original	ncr(4) driver was written for 386BSD and
     FreeBSD by Wolfgang Stanglmeier and Stefan Esser.

BUGS
     No known bugs.

FreeBSD 15.1			December 26, 2020			  SYM(4)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sym&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports>

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