MBF2), which is sync hron iz ed to t he reading port ’s clock.
These New-Mail-Al ert Flags are status indicators only,
and cannot inhibit mailbox-register read or write operations.
Request Acknowledge Handshake
A synch ron ous reques t-ack nowledge han dshak e feature is provided for each port, to perform boundary synchronization between asynchronously-operated ports.
The use o f this feature is optional. When it is used, the
Request input (REQ
A/B
) is sam pled at a rising c lock edge.
With R EQ
A/B
HIGH , R/W
A/B
determ in es whet her a FIFO
read opera tion or a FIFO wri te operation is being requested. The Acknowledge output (ACK
A/B
) is updated
during the following clock cycle(s). ACK
A/B
meets the
setup and hold time requirements of the Enable input
(ENA or E NB). Ther efor e, A CK
A/B
may be tied back to the
enable inpu t to directly gat e FIFO accesse s, at a slight
decreas e in maxim um operating frequenc y.
The assertion of ACK
A/B
signifies that REQ
A/B
was
asserted. Howev er , ACK
A/B
does not depend logica lly on
EN
A/B
; and thus the asser tio n of ACK
A/B
does
not
prove
that a FIFO write access or a FIFO read access actually
took place. While REQ
A/B
and EN
A/B
are being held
HIGH, ACK
A/B
may be considered as a synchronous,
predictive boundary flag. That is, ACK
A/B
acts as a
synchronized predictor of the Almost-Full Flag A F fo r writ e
operat ions, or as a synchroniz ed pr edictor of the AlmostEmpty Flag AE for read operations.
Outside the ‘almost-full’ reg ion and the ‘almost-empty’
region, ACK
A/B
remains continuously HIGH whenever
RE Q
A/B
is held continuous ly HIGH. Within the ‘almos t-full’
region or the ‘almost-empty’ region, ACK
A/B
occurs only
on every
third
c ycle, to prevent an over run of the FI FO’ s
actual full or empty bou ndaries and to ensure that the t
FWL
(first write lat ency ) an d t
FRL
(first read latency ) specific a-
tions are sat isfie d befor e AC K
A/B
is received.
The ‘almost-full region’ is defined as ‘that region, where
the Almost-Full Flag is being asserted’; and the ‘almostempty region’ as ‘that region, where the Almost-Empty
Flag is being asserte d.’ Thus, the extent of these ‘almos t’
regions depends on ho w the system has programm ed the
offset values for the Almost-Full Flags and the Almos tEmpty Flags. If the system has
not
programmed them,
then these offset values remain at their defaul t values,
eight in each case.
If a write attemp t i s unsuccessful because the corresponding FI FO is f ull, or if a rea d at t em pt is u nsuccessful
because th e corr esponding FIFO is empt y , ACK
A/B
is
not
asserted in respons e to REQ
A/B
.
If the REQ/ACK handshake is not used, then the
REQ
A/B
input may be used as a second enable input, at
a possible minor loss in maximum operating speed. In this
case, the ACK
A/B
output may be ignor ed.
W ARNING: Whet her or n ot th e REQ /ACK han dshak e is
being used, the REQ
A/B
input for a port
must
be asserted
for that port to function at all – for FIFO, mailbox, or dat abypass o pe ration.
Data Retransmit
A retransmit operation resets t he read-address pointer of
the corres po nding F IFO ( #1 o r #2 ) back t o the firs t FIF O
physical memory location, so that data may be reread. The
write pointer is not affected. The status flags are updated;
and a block of up to 512 or 1024 data words, which
previously had been written into and read from a FIFO, can
be retrieved. The block to be retransmitted is bounded by
the first FIFO memory location, and the FIFO memory
location addressed by the write pointer . FIFO #1 retransmit
is initiated by strobing the RT1 pin LOW. FIFO #2 retransmit
is initiated by strobing the RT2 pin LOW. Read and write
opera ti on s t o a F IFO sh oul d be sto pped whil e t he co rr esponding Retransmi t signal i s being asserted.
Parity Checking
The Parity Check Flags, PFA and PFB, are asserted
(LOW) whenever there is a parity error in the data word
present on the Port A data bus or the Port B data bus
respectively. The inputs to the parity-evaluation logic
come directly (v ia isolation transistors) from the data-bus
bonding
pads
, in each c ase. Thus, PFA and PFB provide
parity-error indications for whatever 36-bit words are
present at Port A and Port B respectively, regardless of
whether those wo rds originated within the LH543611/21
or in the external syst em .
The fou r bytes of a 36-bit da ta word are grouped as
D0 – D8, D9 – D17, D18 – D26, and D27 – D35. The parity of
each nine-bit byt e is individually chec ked, and the four
single-bit parity indications are logically ORed and inverted
to produce the Parity-Flag output.
If the Parity Policy bit (Control- Register bit 09) is HIGH,
then parity at Port B will be computed over the field
defined by the Word -Width Selection con trol input s WS
0
and WS1, and then may be for ful l-words, for half- words ,
or for single bytes. Otherwise, pa rit y will be computed
over full-words regardless of the setting of WS0 and WS1.
Parity check in g is initia liz ed for odd p arit y a t rese t, bu t
can be reprogrammed for even parity or f or odd parity
during operation. Control-Register bit 00 (zero) selects
the pa rity m ode, o dd or ev en. ( See Tables 3, 5, and 6, and
Figure 10.)
OPERATIONAL DESCRIPTION ( cont’ d)
512 x 36 x 2/ 1024 x 36 x 2 BiFI FOs L H543611/21
13