[dpdk-dev] Reg DPDK & PMD

[raman geetha gopalakrishnan]

Thanks  a lot Bruce to correct my assumption. This was what i looked for.

Thanks
Raman

On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson at intel.com
> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 08, 2017 at 07:05:03PM +0530, raman geetha gopalakrishnan
> wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I have the following basic question. Hope to get an answer / link where i
> > can get myself clear.
> >
> > 1. In DPDK PMD is optimized driver for an given NIC to get maximum
> > performance.
> >     That being the case why we are talking about DPDK supported NICs.
> >
> >      A) My assumption is that NIC interface is standardized so that PMD
> > should actually work with any NIC (barring some NIC specific performance
> > tweaks)
> >           is that correct?
>
> No, that assumption is not correct, which is the reason we have so many
> NIC drivers in DPDK. Each NIC uses a different method of talking to SW,
> both in terms of the registers needed to be accessed to initialize the
> NIC and then in terms of the metadata format used to receive or transmit
> packets.
>
> Regards,
> /Bruce
>
> >
> >      B) if #A is correct , how can i make changes to PMD to support any
> NIC
> > ?
> >
> > if i have to put the above question in different way then it is
> >
> > 2. what is preventing us from having a common PMD layer for all NICs and
> > additional PMD specific to each NIC???
> >
> > Thanks
> > Raman
>