home | help
AHC(4)			     Kernel Interfaces Manual			  AHC(4)

NAME
     ahc -- Adaptec VL/EISA/PCI SCSI host adapter driver

SYNOPSIS
     For one or more VL/EISA cards:
     device eisa
     device ahc

     For one or more PCI cards:
     device pci
     device ahc

     To allow PCI adapters to use memory mapped I/O if enabled:
     options AHC_ALLOW_MEMIO

     To configure one or more controllers to assume the target role:
     options AHC_TMODE_ENABLE <bitmask of units>

     For one or more SCSI busses:
     device scbus

DESCRIPTION
     This  driver  provides  access to the SCSI bus(es) connected to the Adaptec
     AIC77xx and AIC78xx host adapter chips.

     Driver features include support for twin and wide busses,	fast,  ultra  or
     ultra2 synchronous transfers depending on controller type, tagged queueing,
     SCB paging, and target mode.

     Memory mapped I/O can be enabled for PCI devices with the "AHC_ALLOW_MEMIO"
     configuration  option.  Memory mapped I/O is more efficient than the alter-
     native, programmed I/O.  Most PCI BIOSes will map devices	so  that  either
     technique	for  communicating  with  the card is available.  In some cases,
     usually when the PCI device is sitting behind a PCI->PCI bridge,  the  BIOS
     may  fail to properly initialize the chip for memory mapped I/O.  The typi-
     cal symptom of this problem is a system hang if memory mapped  I/O  is  at-
     tempted.  Most modern motherboards perform the initialization correctly and
     work fine with this option enabled.

     Individual  controllers  may  be  configured  to operate in the target role
     through the "AHC_TMODE_ENABLE" configuration option.  The value assigned to
     this option should be a bitmap of all units where target mode  is	desired.
     For  example,  a value of 0x25, would enable target mode on units 0, 2, and
     5.  A value of 0x8a enables it for units 1, 3, and 7.

     Per target configuration performed in the SCSI-Select menu,  accessible  at
     boot  in non-EISA models, or through an EISA configuration utility for EISA
     models, is honored by this driver.  This includes	synchronous/asynchronous
     transfers, maximum synchronous negotiation rate, wide transfers, disconnec-
     tion,  the  host  adapter's  SCSI ID, and, in the case of EISA Twin Channel
     controllers, the primary channel selection.  For systems  that  store  non-
     volatile  settings  in a system specific manner rather than a serial eeprom
     directly connected to the aic7xxx controller, the BIOS must be enabled  for
     the  driver  to  access  this information.  This restriction applies to all
     EISA and many motherboard configurations.

     Note that I/O addresses are determined automatically by the probe routines,
     but care should be taken when using a 284x (VESA local bus  controller)  in
     an EISA system.  The jumpers setting the I/O area for the 284x should match
     the  EISA	slot  into  which the card is inserted to prevent conflicts with
     other EISA cards.

     Performance and feature sets vary throughout the aic7xxx product line.  The
     following table provides a comparison of the different chips  supported  by
     the  ahc driver.  Note that wide and twin channel features, although always
     supported by a particular chip, may be disabled in a particular motherboard
     or card design.

	   Chip       MIPS    Bus      MaxSync	 MaxWidth  SCBs  Features
	   aic7770     10    EISA/VL	10MHz	  16Bit     4	 1
	   aic7850     10    PCI/32	10MHz	   8Bit     3
	   aic7860     10    PCI/32	20MHz	   8Bit     3
	   aic7870     10    PCI/32	10MHz	  16Bit    16
	   aic7880     10    PCI/32	20MHz	  16Bit    16
	   aic7890     20    PCI/32	40MHz	  16Bit    16	     3 4 5 6 7 8
	   aic7891     20    PCI/64	40MHz	  16Bit    16	     3 4 5 6 7 8
	   aic7892     20    PCI/64	80MHz	  16Bit    16	     3 4 5 6 7 8
	   aic7895     15    PCI/32	20MHz	  16Bit    16	   2 3 4 5
	   aic7895C    15    PCI/32	20MHz	  16Bit    16	   2 3 4 5     8
	   aic7896     20    PCI/32	40MHz	  16Bit    16	   2 3 4 5 6 7 8
	   aic7897     20    PCI/64	40MHz	  16Bit    16	   2 3 4 5 6 7 8
	   aic7899     20    PCI/64	80MHz	  16Bit    16	   2 3 4 5 6 7 8

	   1.	Multiplexed Twin Channel Device - One controller servicing two
		busses.
	   2.	Multi-function Twin Channel Device - Two controllers on one
		chip.
	   3.	Command Channel Secondary DMA Engine - Allows scatter gather
		list and SCB prefetch.
	   4.	64 Byte SCB Support - SCSI CDB is embedded in the SCB to elimi-
		nate an extra DMA.
	   5.	Block Move Instruction Support - Doubles the speed of certain
		sequencer operations.
	   6.	`Bayonet' style Scatter Gather Engine - Improves S/G prefetch
		performance.
	   7.	Queuing Registers - Allows queueing of new transactions without
		pausing the sequencer.
	   8.	Multiple Target IDs - Allows the controller to respond to selec-
		tion as a target on multiple SCSI IDs.

HARDWARE
     The ahc driver supports the following SCSI host adapter chips and SCSI con-
     troller cards:

     *	 Adaptec AIC7770 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7850 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7860 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7870 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7880 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7890 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7891 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7892 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7895 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7896 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7897 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec AIC7899 host adapter chip
     *	 Adaptec 274X(W)
     *	 Adaptec 274X(T)
     *	 Adaptec 284X
     *	 Adaptec 2910
     *	 Adaptec 2915
     *	 Adaptec 2920
     *	 Adaptec 2930C
     *	 Adaptec 2930U2
     *	 Adaptec 2940
     *	 Adaptec 2940J
     *	 Adaptec 2940N
     *	 Adaptec 2940U
     *	 Adaptec 2940AU
     *	 Adaptec 2940UW
     *	 Adaptec 2940UW Dual
     *	 Adaptec 2940UW Pro
     *	 Adaptec 2940U2W
     *	 Adaptec 2940U2B
     *	 Adaptec 2950U2W
     *	 Adaptec 2950U2B
     *	 Adaptec 19160B
     *	 Adaptec 29160B
     *	 Adaptec 29160N
     *	 Adaptec 3940
     *	 Adaptec 3940U
     *	 Adaptec 3940AU
     *	 Adaptec 3940UW
     *	 Adaptec 3940AUW
     *	 Adaptec 3940U2W
     *	 Adaptec 3950U2
     *	 Adaptec 3960
     *	 Adaptec 39160
     *	 Adaptec 3985
     *	 Adaptec 4944UW
     *	 NEC PC-9821Xt13 (PC-98)
     *	 NEC RvII26 (PC-98)
     *	 NEC PC-9821X-B02L/B09 (PC-98)
     *	 NEC SV-98/2-B03 (PC-98)
     *	 Many motherboards with on-board SCSI support

SCSI CONTROL BLOCKS (SCBs)
     Every transaction sent to a device on the SCSI  bus  is  assigned	a  `SCSI
     Control  Block' (SCB).  The SCB contains all of the information required by
     the controller to process a transaction.  The chip feature table lists  the
     number  of SCBs that can be stored in on-chip memory.  All chips with model
     numbers greater than or equal to 7870 allow for the on chip SCB space to be
     augmented with external SRAM up to a maximum of 255 SCBs.	Very few Adaptec
     controller configurations have external SRAM.

     If external SRAM is not available, SCBs are a limited resource.  Using  the
     SCBs  in a straight forward manner would only allow the driver to handle as
     many concurrent transactions as there are physical SCBs.  To fully  utilize
     the  SCSI	bus  and the devices on it, requires much more concurrency.  The
     solution to this problem is SCB Paging, a concept similar to memory paging.
     SCB paging takes advantage of the fact that devices usually disconnect from
     the SCSI bus for long periods of time without talking  to	the  controller.
     The  SCBs	for  disconnected transactions are only of use to the controller
     when the transfer is resumed.  When the host queues another transaction for
     the controller to execute, the controller firmware will use a free  SCB  if
     one  is  available.  Otherwise, the state of the most recently disconnected
     (and therefore most likely to stay disconnected) SCB is saved, via dma,  to
     host  memory,  and the local SCB reused to start the new transaction.  This
     allows the controller to queue up to 255  transactions  regardless  of  the
     amount  of SCB space.  Since the local SCB space serves as a cache for dis-
     connected transactions, the more SCB space available,  the  less  host  bus
     traffic consumed saving and restoring SCB data.

BUGS
     Some Quantum drives (at least the Empire 2100 and 1080s) will not run on an
     AIC7870  Rev B in synchronous mode at 10MHz.  Controllers with this problem
     have a 42 MHz clock crystal on them and run  slightly  above  10MHz.   This
     confuses  the drive and hangs the bus.  Setting a maximum synchronous nego-
     tiation rate of 8MHz in the SCSI-Select utility will  allow  normal  opera-
     tion.

     Although  the  Ultra2 and Ultra160 products have sufficient instruction ram
     space to support both the initiator and  target  roles  concurrently,  this
     configuration  is	disabled in favor of allowing the target role to respond
     on multiple target ids.  A method for configuring dual role mode should  be
     provided.

     Tagged Queuing is not supported in target mode.

     Reselection  in target mode fails to function correctly on all high voltage
     differential boards as shipped by Adaptec.  Information on  how  to  modify
     HVD board to work correctly in target mode is available from Adaptec.

SEE ALSO
     aha(4), ahb(4), cd(4), da(4), sa(4), scsi(4)

AUTHORS
     The ahc driver, the AIC7xxx sequencer-code assembler, and the firmware run-
     ning on the aic7xxx chips was written by Justin T. Gibbs.

HISTORY
     The ahc driver appeared in FreeBSD 2.0.

FreeBSD 5.4			  July 4, 2004				  AHC(4)

home | help