RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect [Hardcover]

Sam Fuller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0470092912 | ISBN-13: 978-0470092910 | Edition: 1

RapidIO - The Embedded System Interconnect brings together one essential volume on RapidIO interconnect technology, providing a major reference work for the evaluation and understanding of RapidIO. Covering essential aspects of the specification, it also answers most usage questions from both hardware and software engineers. It will also serve as a companion text to the specifications when developing or working with the RapidIO interconnect technology. Including the history of RapidIO and case of studies of RapidIO deployment, this really is the definitive reference guide for this new area of technology.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

High-speed, reliable connectivity for next-generation system design

Providing a detailed description of RapidIO applications in several types of system, RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect is the first comprehensive reference on the RapidIO interconnect technology. RapidIO was developed specifically to achieve high-performance, low-cost, reliable and scalable system connectivity in embedded, networking, and communications devices. This book presents the motivations for RapidIO and describes how it compares with other interconnect technologies.

Written by one of the founders of the RapidIO Trade Association, this unique resource:

• Presents an introductory section detailing the history of the RapidIO technology
• Provides a practical guide for all of the RapidIO logical layer protocols, network, link and physical layer technologies
• Discusses the usage of RapidIO in embedded systems such as enterprise storage and wireless infrastructure
• Illustrates newly defined technologies such as the RapidFabric dataplane extensions
• Describes case studies of RapidIO usage in real system architectures
• Evaluates the programming models associated with RapidIO
• Reviews related mechanical standards such as the VME Switched Serial Extensions and the PICMG Advanced Telecommunications Architecture (ATCA) standards.

RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect is an essential tool for professionals involved in the development of large-scale, high-performance embedded networking, communications and related equipment. With accessible contributions from industry leaders, this book also serves as an excellent reference for common RapidIO packet and symbol formats, register file definitions and system software application programming interfaces.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 380 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470092912
• ISBN-13: 978-0470092910
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.1 x 9.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #644,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #77 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Microprocessors & System Design > Embedded Systems

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Reference on RapidIO technology, May 3, 2007

By 

Navid Lashkarian (Pleasanton, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect (Hardcover)

RapidIO is an emerging technology in embedded processing applications. Given the limited technical resources available on this topic, authors have done a good job compiling a relatively comprehensive material on RapidIO technology.

Chapter 2 of the book provides a good overview of the technology and describes the physical, transport and logical layers in a nutshell. It provides the readers with just enough information to dive into more advanced topics.

Chapter 4 covers the I/O logical operations that are the heart of I/O transactions in RapidIO technology. This chapter is natural extension of chapter 2 and describes the various packet formats and the corresponding response/ acknowledgement packets.

Chapter 5 covers the messaging operations and describes the packet format and response acknowledgement for these transactions. The extension of the topic to the mailbox structure is rather informative for software developers.

Chapter 7 and 8 are written in a very meticulous way and cover most aspects of the physical layer, such as error correction, control, PMA and PCS layers.

Chapter 10 is an excellent topic on system bringup and initialization. It provides thorough and detailed information on the enumeration process, boot loading address mapping and hardware abstraction layer. The API's provided in this chapter are quite useful and provide good overview on the routing table configuration.

Chapter 14 provides the design considerations and tradeoffs for development of the RapidIO technology.

The main problem with this book is the flow and presentation of the material. Since the book is compilation of the articles and chapters by various experts in the field, the presentation of the material in the book is not consistent. You can find the same information being repeated or covered in numerous chapters (for instance the statement: "RapidIO end point can support 8-bit 0r 16 bit destination IDs" is repeated numerous times in the book). Also the index of subjects at the end of the book is not rich and can be improved substantially. I guess a good and thorough editorial review is very much needed.

I believe a reference chapter on the software embedded tools for enumeration and configuration of the fabric switches is missing in the book. Adding reference APIs for standard processors such as TI's TMS320C6455 or Freescale SC8144 would help many software engineers to quickly develop their application.

The information provided in chapters 3, 13 and 15 are too general and broad. For instance chapter 15 covers the FPGA implementation of the RapidIO without any reference on the RapidIO IP foot print (device utilization such as BRAM or logic gates/slices), power dissipation, MGT interface and timing considerations (setup and hold considerations) for FPGAs.
Adding a practical WCDMA or Wimax application with detail information on RF/Baseband interface, framing, CPRI and OPSI interface to chapter 15 would also benefit system designers who intend to adopt the RapidIO technology for the wireless base stations.

The book is not free of typo errors, here are the examples
Page 18 refers to chapter 13 on the topic of GSM while the GSM is covered in chapter 11.
Page 40 , refers the large address field as 63 bits while the correct bits is 61.
Page 154 refers the CSR and CAR discussion to chapter 18, instead of Appendix B.
Page 284 and 285 refers the maximum packet size of 276 Byts, while the max. packet size is 256 Bytes.

While I suggest this book as a good reference and starting point on RapidIO technology, I believe this book has quite some room for improvement and I encourage the authors to address the above mentioned issues in the future editions.
As the last comment, since this book addresses a dynamic and rapidly changing technology, I suggest authors to have an online website (URL) to provide the interested readers with the recent technical materials related to this subject.
RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Technology Unveiled...., February 14, 2005

By 

Shridhar V. Channagiri - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect (Hardcover)

This book captures the whole nine yards of RapidIO as an interconnect technology for embedded and other applications. Its comprehensive, concise and provides details for a novice user as also a system designer. Well written and a must read for all technology professionals