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16.2: Types of I/O

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    82923
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    Channel I/O

    Channel I/O is a high-performance I/O architecture that is implemented in various forms on a number of computer architectures, especially on mainframe computers. In the past, channels were generally implemented with custom devices, variously named channel, I/O processor, I/O controller, I/O synchronizer, or DMA controller.

    Description

    Many I/O tasks can be complex and require logic to be applied to the data to convert formats and other similar duties. In these situations, the simplest solution is to ask the CPU to handle the logic, but because I/O devices are relatively slow, a CPU could waste time (in computer perspective) waiting for the data from the device. This situation is called 'I/O bound'.

    Channel architecture avoids this problem by using a logically independent, low-cost facility. Channel processors are simple, but self-contained, with minimal logic and sufficient scratch-pad memory (working storage) to handle I/O tasks. They are typically not powerful or flexible enough to be used as a computer on their own and can be construed as a form of coprocessor. On some systems the channels use memory or registers addressable by the central processor as their scratchpad memory, while on other systems it is present in the channel hardware. Typically there are standard interfaces between channels and external peripheral devices, and multiple channels can operate concurrently.

    A CPU typically designates a block of storage or sends a relatively small channel program to the channel in order to handle I/O tasks, which the channel and controller can, in many cases, complete without further intervention from the CPU (exception: those channel programs which utilize 'program controlled interrupts', PCIs, to facilitate program loading, demand paging and other essential system tasks).

    When I/O transfer is complete or an error is detected, the controller communicates with the CPU through the channel using an interrupt. Since the channel has direct access to the main memory, it is also often referred to as a direct memory access (DMA) controller.

    In the most recent implementations, the channel program is initiated and the channel processor performs all required processing until either an ending condition. This eliminates much of the CPU—Channel interaction and greatly improves overall system performance. The channel may report several different types of ending conditions, which may be unambiguously normal, may unambiguously indicate an error or whose meaning may depend on the context and the results of a subsequent sense operation. In some systems an I/O controller can request an automatic retry of some operations without CPU intervention. In earlier implementations, any error, no matter how small, required CPU intervention, and the overhead was, consequently, much higher. A program-controlled interruption (PCI) is still supported for certain "legacy" operations, but the trend is to move away from such PCIs, except where unavoidable.

    Memory-mapped I/O

    Memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) and port-mapped I/O (PMIO) are two complementary methods of performing input/output (I/O) between the central processing unit (CPU) and peripheral devices in a computer. These are both alternative approach the channel based I/O discussed above.

    Memory-mapped I/O uses the same address space to address both memory and I/O devices. The memory and registers of the I/O devices are mapped to (associated with) address values. So when an address is accessed by the CPU, it may refer to a portion of physical RAM, or it can instead refer to memory of the I/O device. Thus, the CPU instructions used to access the memory can also be used for accessing devices. Each I/O device monitors the CPU's address bus and responds to any CPU access of an address assigned to that device, connecting the data bus to the desired device's hardware register. To accommodate the I/O devices, areas of the addresses used by the CPU must be reserved for I/O and must not be available for normal physical memory. The reservation may be permanent, or temporary (as achieved via bank switching). An example of the latter is found in the Commodore 64, which uses a form of memory mapping to cause RAM or I/O hardware to appear in the 0xD000-0xDFFF range.

    Description

    Different CPU-to-device communication methods, such as memory mapping, do not affect the direct memory access (DMA) for a device, because, by definition, DMA is a memory-to-device communication method that bypasses the CPU.

    Hardware interrupts are another communication method between the CPU and peripheral devices, however, for a number of reasons, interrupts are always treated separately. An interrupt is device-initiated, as opposed to the methods mentioned above, which are CPU-initiated. It is also unidirectional, as information flows only from device to CPU. Lastly, each interrupt line carries only one bit of information with a fixed meaning, namely "an event that requires attention has occurred in a device on this interrupt line".

    I/O operations can slow memory access if the address and data buses are shared. This is because the peripheral device is usually much slower than main memory. In some architectures, port-mapped I/O operates via a dedicated I/O bus, alleviating the problem.

    One merit of memory-mapped I/O is that, by discarding the extra complexity that port I/O brings, a CPU requires less internal logic and is thus cheaper, faster, easier to build, consumes less power and can be physically smaller; this follows the basic tenets of reduced instruction set computing, and is also advantageous in embedded systems. The other advantage is that, because regular memory instructions are used to address devices, all of the CPU's addressing modes are available for the I/O as well as the memory, and instructions that perform an ALU operation directly on a memory operand (loading an operand from a memory location, storing the result to a memory location, or both) can be used with I/O device registers as well. In contrast, port-mapped I/O instructions are often very limited, often providing only for simple load-and-store operations between CPU registers and I/O ports, so that, for example, to add a constant to a port-mapped device register would require three instructions: read the port to a CPU register, add the constant to the CPU register, and write the result back to the port.

    As 16-bit processors have become obsolete and replaced with 32-bit and 64-bit in general use, reserving ranges of memory address space for I/O is less of a problem, as the memory address space of the processor is usually much larger than the required space for all memory and I/O devices in a system. Therefore, it has become more frequently practical to take advantage of the benefits of memory-mapped I/O. However, even with address space being no longer a major concern, neither I/O mapping method is universally superior to the other, and there will be cases where using port-mapped I/O is still preferable.

    Memory-mapped I/O is preferred in x86-based architectures because the instructions that perform port-based I/O are limited to one register: EAX, AX, and AL are the only registers that data can be moved into or out of, and either a byte-sized immediate value in the instruction or a value in register DX determines which port is the source or destination port of the transfer. Since any general-purpose register can send or receive data to or from memory and memory-mapped I/O devices, memory-mapped I/O uses fewer instructions and can run faster than port I/O. AMD did not extend the port I/O instructions when defining the x86-64 architecture to support 64-bit ports, so 64-bit transfers cannot be performed using port I/O.

    Port-mapped I/O

    Port-mapped I/O often uses a special class of CPU instructions designed specifically for performing I/O, such as the in and out instructions found on microprocessors based on the x86 and x86-64 architectures. Different forms of these two instructions can copy one, two or four bytes (outb, outw and outl, respectively) between the EAX register or one of that register's subdivisions on the CPU and a specified I/O port which is assigned to an I/O device. I/O devices have a separate address space from general memory, either accomplished by an extra "I/O" pin on the CPU's physical interface, or an entire bus dedicated to I/O. Because the address space for I/O is isolated from that for main memory, this is sometimes referred to as isolated I/O.

    Direct Memory Access

    Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system memory (random-access memory) independent of the central processing unit (CPU).

    Without DMA, when the CPU is using programmed input/output, it is typically fully occupied for the entire duration of the read or write operation, and is thus unavailable to perform other work. With DMA, the CPU first initiates the transfer, then it does other operations while the transfer is in progress, and it finally receives an interrupt from the DMA controller (DMAC) when the operation is done. This feature is useful at any time that the CPU cannot keep up with the rate of data transfer, or when the CPU needs to perform work while waiting for a relatively slow I/O data transfer. Many hardware systems use DMA, including disk drive controllers, graphics cards, network cards and sound cards. DMA is also used for intra-chip data transfer in multi-core processors. Computers that have DMA channels can transfer data to and from devices with much less CPU overhead than computers without DMA channels. Similarly, a processing element inside a multi-core processor can transfer data to and from its local memory without occupying its processor time, allowing computation and data transfer to proceed in parallel.

    DMA can also be used for "memory to memory" copying or moving of data within memory. DMA can offload expensive memory operations, such as large copies or scatter-gather operations, from the CPU to a dedicated DMA engine. An implementation example is the I/O Acceleration Technology. DMA is of interest in network-on-chip and in-memory computing architectures.

    Description

    There are three common modes DMA uses, they are described below.

    Burst mode

    In burst mode, an entire block of data is transferred in one contiguous sequence. Once the DMA controller is granted access to the system bus by the CPU, it transfers all bytes of data in the data block before releasing control of the system buses back to the CPU, but renders the CPU inactive for relatively long periods of time. The mode is also called "Block Transfer Mode".

    Cycle stealing mode

    The cycle stealing mode is used in systems in which the CPU should not be disabled for the length of time needed for burst transfer modes. In the cycle stealing mode, the DMA controller obtains access to the system bus the same way as in burst mode, using BR (Bus Request) and BG (Bus Grant) signals, which are the two signals controlling the interface between the CPU and the DMA controller. However, in cycle stealing mode, after one byte of data transfer, the control of the system bus is deasserted to the CPU via BG. It is then continually requested again via BR, transferring one byte of data per request, until the entire block of data has been transferred. By continually obtaining and releasing the control of the system bus, the DMA controller essentially interleaves instruction and data transfers. The CPU processes an instruction, then the DMA controller transfers one data value, and so on. On the one hand, the data block is not transferred as quickly in cycle stealing mode as in burst mode, but on the other hand the CPU is not idled for as long as in burst mode. Cycle stealing mode is useful for controllers that monitor data in real time.

    Transparent mode

    Transparent mode takes the most time to transfer a block of data, yet it is also the most efficient mode in terms of overall system performance. In transparent mode, the DMA controller transfers data only when the CPU is performing operations that do not use the system buses. The primary advantage of transparent mode is that the CPU never stops executing its programs and the DMA transfer is free in terms of time, while the disadvantage is that the hardware needs to determine when the CPU is not using the system buses, which can be complex. This is also called "Hidden DMA data transfer mode".

    Adapted from:
    "Memory-mapped I/O" by Multiple ContributorsWikipedia is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
    "Channel I/O" by Multiple ContributorsWikipedia is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
    "Direct memory access" by Multiple ContributorsWikipedia is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0


    This page titled 16.2: Types of I/O is shared under a CC BY-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Patrick McClanahan.

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