Flow control, Error detection and management, Flow control -7 – Altera Hybrid Memory Cube Controller User Manual
Page 35: Error detection and management -7

This feature enhances data reliability but increases request-to-response latency and resource utilization.
Enabling this feature might reduce the maximum operating frequency (f
MAX
) and might increase the
difficulty of closing timing in full-width variations.
Related Information
Error and Retry Statistics Registers
Describes the
RETRY_ECC_COUNT
and
RESPONSE_ECC_COUNT
registers.
Information about the built-in ECC feature in Arria 10 devices.
Flow Control
The HMC specification describes two possible flow control schemes for host-to-HMC traffic, token based
flow control and Response Open Loop Mode.
In token-passing mode, the device sends information about its buffering capacity to the HMC link partner
during transaction layer initialization. In Response Open Loop Mode, the device does not send informa‐
tion about its buffering capacity to the HMC link partner. Instead, it only sends a request packet when it
has room to receive the response at any time.
The HMC Controller IP core operates in Response Open Loop Mode. The IP core is designed to have the
capacity to accept all response packets from the HMC device.
When user requests come in faster than the HMC Controller IP core can send them out on the HMC link,
the HMC Controller IP core backpressures the application by deasserting the
dp_req_ready
signal.
Error Detection and Management
The HMC specification defines error detection and recovery processes. The HMC Controller IP core
complies with these requirements, and implements the following additional features to support error
management:
• Error Response queues to support software handling without dropping Error Responses that arrive in
quick succession
• Statistics registers that count the number of packets in various error categories
Table 3-2: HMC Response Packet Field Checking
The HMC Controller checks these HMC response packet fields for error indications, and handles errors by
entering Error Abort mode to force the HMC device to retransmit the packet. In this mode, the IP core completes
transmission of any partially transmitted packet and then submits IRTRY packets, per the HMC specification. The
IP core also sets the indicated bit in the
INTERRUPT_STATUS
register and increments the
Local Count
field of the
LOCAL_ERROR_COUNT
register.
Response Packet Field
Error Indication
INTERRUPT_STATUS Register Bit
LNG
and
DLN
The two fields have different
values, or an invalid value
LNG/DLN Error
CRC
Incorrect CRC
CRC Error
UG-01152
2015.05.04
Flow Control
3-7
Functional Description
Altera Corporation