created on it by the host/card drivers. On host the channels are private
and used only by the host driver to transfer data for the virtio devices.
+The Symmetric Communication Interface (SCIF (pronounced as skiff)) is a
+low level communications API across PCIe currently implemented for MIC.
+More details are available at scif_overview.txt.
+
Here is a block diagram of the various components described above. The
virtio backends are situated on the host rather than the card given better
single threaded performance for the host compared to MIC, the ability of
| | | Virtio over PCIe IOCTLs |
| | +--------------------------+
+-----------+ | | | +-----------+
-| MIC DMA | | | | | MIC DMA |
-| Driver | | | | | Driver |
-+-----------+ | | | +-----------+
- | | | | |
-+---------------+ | | | +----------------+
-|MIC virtual Bus| | | | |MIC virtual Bus |
-+---------------+ | | | +----------------+
- | | | | |
- | +--------------+ | +---------------+ |
- | |Intel MIC | | |Intel MIC | |
- +---|Card Driver | | |Host Driver | |
- +--------------+ | +---------------+-----+
+| MIC DMA | | +----------+ | +-----------+ | | MIC DMA |
+| Driver | | | SCIF | | | SCIF | | | Driver |
++-----------+ | +----------+ | +-----------+ | +-----------+
+ | | | | | | |
++---------------+ | +-----+-----+ | +-----+-----+ | +---------------+
+|MIC virtual Bus| | |SCIF HW Bus| | |SCIF HW BUS| | |MIC virtual Bus|
++---------------+ | +-----------+ | +-----+-----+ | +---------------+
+ | | | | | | |
+ | +--------------+ | | | +---------------+ |
+ | |Intel MIC | | | | |Intel MIC | |
+ +---|Card Driver +----+ | | |Host Driver | |
+ +--------------+ | +----+---------------+-----+
| | |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| |