Is there a standard Zorro II/III to PCI interface formula?

[LoadWB]

Looking at the Zorro III USB card, I noticed that everything feeds into a Spartan.  I was thinking that these have become so fast now (isn't the heart of the MiniMig a Spartan?) that we (I use that word loosely as I have no clue how to program one) could arrange a program which would be a single-chip Zorro-to-PCI interface for possible future PCI buss board expansions.

Is this doable?  How difficult would this be?

[Robert17]

it sounds like the new USB card uses Zorro III DMA, I wonder how much the system would speed up if we were able to use our PCI videocards with 'real' DMA.

Robert

[Ratte]

www.opencores.org
 :-)

[freqmax]

Yes Xilinx Spartan-3 can do PCI asfaik. They even have a special i/o mode for it.
5V operation can be troublesome however.

[downix]

The Spartan-3 would be overkill actually.  I made a PPC <-> HT bridge (much more complex design-wise) in a Spartan 2.

If you'd like, I can take the opencores PCI and mate it up to a crude Zorro II to demonstrate.

[alexh]

At least 4-5 people have tried to do Zorro III (with and without DMA) to PCI bridges in the past. All are AFAIK closed source.

Klaus Burkert - Picasso IV
?? - Various Phase5 B/C Visions
Grzegorz Kraszewski - Prometheus
?? - Mediator
Michael Boehmer - ZIII USB

[alexh]

Robert17 wrote:
I wonder how much the system would speed up if we were able to use our PCI videocards with 'real' DMA.

PicassoIV?

[mboehmer_e3b]

At least 4-5 people have tried to do Zorro III (with and without DMA) to PCI bridges in the past. All are AFAIK closed source.

Correct, as there is quite a load of knowhow inside these bridges.

Michael Boehmer - ZIII USB

Wrong. The ZIII USB is not PCI. In contrast to PCI USB2 chips the chipset used on Deneb can operate in PIO mode, making operation with Buster 7 (and/or Buster 9/11 combinations with DMA problems) possible. Moreover, you can do direct Zorro III DMA as compared to the PIO DMA used on Mediators (PCI DMA from/to USB2 to/from PCI gfx memory, Zorro III PIO from/to PCI gfx memory).

Also, Zorro II operation is possible here.

My PCI to Zorro III bridge experience comes from work on the Prometheus DMA bug, but this work is something compeletely different.

Though, joining my Zorro III experiences from Deneb and PCI experiences from university and Prometheus would open possibilities for a real Zorro III PCI bridge :-)
In fact, the Spartan FPGA used on the Deneb woul offer enough ressources for such a project.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Yes Xilinx Spartan-3 can do PCI asfaik. They even have a special i/o mode for it.
5V operation can be troublesome however.

Spartan II can do also, with the advantage of being 5V I/O tolerant. Do you want to waste time and money on 3.3V bus translators on the Zorro side? :-)

Michael

[keropi]

so.... is there a possibillity to see a ZorroIII DMA sata controller? so we get rid of those UGLY and huge scsi/IDE cables once and for all?
not to mention the ancient HD/CD-DVD's we have to use...

[Robert17]

Hell, even a Zorro 3 DMA ATA/33 card would be nice enough

[alexh]

The problem with SATA is getting the SERDES phy. I dont think anyone sells them separately (although I do have some Phy test chips).

FPGA's with SERDES I/O are super expensive I think.

It might be possible to use an Oxsemi U931DS which has a DMA capable SRAM bus. It would be slow though.. but perhaps not as slow as ZorroIII ;-)

I would be interested to know if the Deneb drivers & Poseidon will fit in a Kickflash... Bootable USB drives?