Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 22:31:15 +0200 (MET DST) From: Stefan Esser <se@zpr.uni-koeln.de> To: Glen Foster <gfoster@gfoster.com> Cc: hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: NCR 53C8xx board update Message-ID: <199609052031.WAA01746@x14.mi.uni-koeln.de> In-Reply-To: <199609041951.PAA23137@tbd.gfoster.com> References: <199609041951.PAA23137@tbd.gfoster.com>
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Glen Foster writes: > Folks, > > I didn't get much of a response to my request for information on SCSI > host adaptors based on the NCR 53C8xx chips, I'm sure there are many > options other than the ones I listed below. I did do a small amount > of web surfing and learned a little bit but was not successful in > finding any "mother lode" of information. Thanks a bunch to those who > responded. Hmm, I must have missed your request for information ... > I did learn that the chips are manufactured by Symbios Logic (SL) > under contract to NCR. The SL WWW pages have a fair amount of No, Hyunday bought the microcomponents division from NCR and made it a US based subsidary under the name of Symbios. > high-quality information, specifications not just marketing info. AMD No! The AMD chips are compatible to some old NCR chips, but not the 53c8xx series! > also has a line of chips that it manufactures that they claim are > compatible. The SL chip varieties are as follows: > 53c810 - FAST SCSI-2, no BIOS > 53c815 - FAST SCSI-2, BIOS > 53c820 - FAST WIDE SCSI-2, no BIOS > 53c825 - FAST WIDE SCSI-2, BIOS > 53C860 - Fast-20 version of 810 > 53C875 - Fast-20 version of 815 There also is the 53c810A (an enhanced version of the 810, something like the 860 with only 10MHz data rate) and the 825A, which is a 10MHz variant of the 53c875. The 53c825A and the 53c875 have a 4KB SRAM integrated into the controller chip. They can for that reason execute their SCRIPTS "microcode" from that RAM, and do not need to fetch it from system DRAM as the other variants have to. All but the original 53c810 have a burst instruction read feature, which reduces the number of memory accesses by a factor of two to four. (The current FreeBSD driver does not support those features. I'm working on the integration of support for those and a few more features, but will need some more time for the implementation and testing.) > SL claims that the 860 and 875 are backwards compatible to the 810 and > 815. This may or may not translate to being usable with FreeBSD, > caveat emptor. Sure, all of them work under FreeBSD-current, and I can supply you with a patch to make the 860 and 875 work under -stable, too. (I already posted it to the freebsd-stable mailing list.) > Here are the host adaptors I was able to find. I suspect there are > many more. If anybody knows of additional adaptors or can fill in the > blanks below, I'd appreciate hearing about it by e-mail. > > Manuf.,model,chip,termination,BIOS,Comment > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Acculogic,unknown,unknown,unknown,unknown,unknown,(800)854-7600 > Asus,SC-200,53C810,active,no,URL: http://www.asus.com.tw/FTP/ASUS/Info/Spec/pci-sc200.txt > DTC,DTC3130B,53C815,active,yes,URL: http://www.datatechnology.com/ > Gigabyte,GA-410,unknown,passive(?),no,NCR 810 PCI SCSI by another name > Nexstor/TMC,unknown,unknown,unknown,unknown,unknown,(408)262-1056 > SYMBIOS LOGIC,various,various,passive,both,URL: http://www.symbios.com/products/datashts/matrix.htm No. The Symbios cards all come with ACTIVE terminators! And they are the only vendor of NCR cards with differential drivers I know of. > Tekram,DC-390,Am53C974A,unknown,yes,URL: http://www.tekram.com/dc390.html That particular Tekram card is not supported by the BSD NCR driver, since it uses an AMD chip that is completely incomptible with the 53c8xx. But Tekram offers drivers for FreeBSD-2.1.5R and -current from their Web site! (The AMD chip is limited in its capabilities and much less powerful than an NCR 53c8xx or eg. an Adaptec 2940.) But the Tekram DC390W, DC390U and DC390F use the 53c825A, 53c875 (with only an 8bit SCSI bus connected) and 53c875 with a WIDE SCSI bus, respectively. They all come with active terminators and a BIOS, that lets you store drive parameters in NVRAM, as known from eg. the Adaptec cards. (They have FreeBSD drivers for these cards too, but those do not make good use of the NCR chips' features and deliver far worse performance results than the FreeBSD NCR driver. I'll extend the FreeBSD driver to understand the NVRAM parameters, but it currently ignores them.) > Tyan,S1365 Yorktown,53c825,unknown,yes,URL: http://www.best.com/~jchen/ts1365.htm This card uses active terminators, too. Regards, STefan
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