Re: [PATCH 00/15] Adding GAUDI NIC code to habanalabs driver

From: Oded Gabbay
Date: Thu Sep 10 2020 - 16:38:38 EST


On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 11:25 PM Andrew Lunn <andrew@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Can you please elaborate on how to do this with a single driver that
> > is already in misc ?
> > As I mentioned in the cover letter, we are not developing a
> > stand-alone NIC. We have a deep-learning accelerator with a NIC
> > interface.
>
> This sounds like an MFD.
>
> Andrew

Yes and no. There is only one functionality - training of deep
learning (Accelerating compute operations) :)
The rdma is just our method of scaling-out - our method of
intra-connection between GAUDI devices (similar to NVlink or AMD
crossfire).
So the H/W exposes a single physical function at the PCI level. And
thus Linux can call a single driver for it during the PCI probe.

I hope that in future generations we will improve that, but it is what
it is for GAUDI.
I don't see how to do it otherwise currently but if you have ideas please share.
Oded