RE: [PATCH v3 08/21] fpga: add Intel FPGA DFL PCIe device

From: David Laight
Date: Wed Dec 06 2017 - 04:31:59 EST


From: Alan Tull
> Sent: 04 December 2017 19:47
>
> On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 9:15 PM, Wu Hao <hao.wu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 10:28:04AM +0000, David Laight wrote:
> >> From: Wu Hao
> >> > Sent: 27 November 2017 06:42
> >> > From: Zhang Yi <yi.z.zhang@xxxxxxxxx>
> >> >
> >> > The Intel FPGA device appears as a PCIe device on the system. This patch
> >> > implements the basic framework of the driver for Intel PCIe device which
> >> > is located between CPU and Accelerated Function Units (AFUs), and has
> >> > the Device Feature List (DFL) implemented in its MMIO space.
> >>
> >> This ought to have a better name than 'Intel FPGA'.
> >> An fpga can be used for all sorts of things, this looks like
> >> a very specific architecture using a common VHDL environment to
> >> allow certain types of user VHDL be accessed over PCIe.
> >
> > Hi David
> >
> > This patch adds a pcie device driver for Intel FPGA devices which implements
> > the DFL, e.g Intel Server Platform with In-package FPGA and Intel FPGA PCIe
> > Acceleration Cards. They are pcie devices, and all have DFL implemented in
> > the MMIO space, so we would like to use one kernel driver to handle them.
> >
> > With this full patchset, it just provides user the interfaces to configure
> > and access the FPGA accelerators on Intel DFL based FPGA devices. For sure,
> > users can develop and build their own logics via tools provided by Intel,
> > program them to accelerators on these Intel FPGA devices, and access them
> > for their workloads.
>
> I don't see anything Intel specific here. This could all be named dfl-*

Indeed, doesn't even seem to have to be implemented in an fpga.
It might also not be the only device that implements DFL.
You really need a name for your DFL acceleration implementation/interface.

We make a board that uses an Intel/Altera fpga as a PCIe device, won't look
anything like your one!

David