PCI Busmaster Driver

Both sides of analogue signal processing have excellent circuit elements available today. On the analogue side, the recently released 24-bit ADCs are capable of submicrovolt resolution. On the digital side, 32-bit processors are standard. The above open up new possibilities for high-resolution instrumentation in science, medicine, engineering etc.

For anyone wishing to use the excellent and royalty-free Linux in instrumentation, the major problem is programming the interfacing circuitry. This is in the form of an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). This is the 'chip' that allows the processor and memory (running the 'operating system' ) to 'communicate' with the analogue-interface circuitry via the 'now-standard' PCI bus:

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PCI 'bus-manipulating' ASICs are used in a variety of analogue data acquisition cards. Many of these cards are not currently usable under Linux. We hope this effort will make more cards usable under Linux and correspondingly give a boost to adoption of Linux on the factory floor and laboratory bench.

Some of the popular devices (and their manufacturers) used in PCI-based analogue data acquisition circuits are:

• AMCC : their PCI ASICs are the PCI Matcmaker controller and the PCI Target Interface. The former is used in many analogue data acquisition circuits.,

• PLX Technolgies: Notable ASICs used in analogue instrumentation are the plx9080 and the newer plx9054

• Vcubed Notable PCI ASICs by this company and which are sometimes used in DAQ (data acquisition systems) are v320USC and v3400HPC

Our driver program for reasons of manpower centre around the AMCC device though we are interested in inputs for the other devices. To participate please click on the mailing-list link on the left and subscribe. The program is open for all to participate. Whatever we develop will be released under the GPL. If you are skilled at writing device drivers for Linux or if you are experienced with these devices please subscribe to our mailing list and contribute. If you are a semiconductor manufacturer or a PCI board manufacturer and you would like to contribute please contact us via email.

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