Chipset; Direct Media Interface; Pci Express 2.0 Interface; Sata Interface - Dell PowerEdge T310 Technical Manual

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Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

Dell

8 Chipset

The Dell™ PowerEdge™ T310 planar incorporates the Intel

3420 or Platform Controller Hub (PCH), a highly integrated I/O controller. A number of high-level

features are supported by the chipset on PowerEdge T310, as detailed in the following sections.

8.1 Direct Media Interface

Direct Media Interface (DMI) is the chip-to-chip connection between the processor and chipset. This

high-speed interface integrates advanced priority-based servicing allowing for concurrent traffic and

true isochronous transfer capabilities. Base functionality is completely software-transparent,

permitting current and legacy software to operate normally.

8.2 PCI Express 2.0 Interface

The Intel 3420 provides up to 8 PCI Express Root Ports, supporting the PCI Express Base Specification,

Revision 2.0. Each Root Port supports up to 2.5GT/s for fast access to peripheral devices and

networking with up to eight PCI Express 2.0 x1 ports, configurable as x2 and x4 depending on

motherboard designs.

8.3 SATA Interface

The Intel 3420 chipset has two integrated Serial ATA (SATA) host controllers that support

independent DMA operation on up to six ports, supports data transfer rates of up to 3Gb/s (300MB/s),

and offers two modes of operation:

•

Legacy mode that uses I/O space

•

Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC) mode that uses memory space (software

that uses legacy mode will not have AHCI capabilities)

8.4 PCI Interface

The Intel 3420 PCI interface provides a 33MHz, Revision 2.3 PCI interface implementation. The

chipset integrates a PCI arbiter that supports up to four external PCI bus masters in addition to the

internal Intel 3420 chipset requests. This allows for combinations of up to four PCI down devices and

PCI slots.

8.5 Low Pin Count Interface

The Intel 3420 implements an LPC Interface as described in the LPC 1.1 Specification. The Low Pin

Count (LPC) bridge function of the Intel 3420 resides in PCI Device 31:Function 0. In addition to the

LPC bridge interface function, D31:F0 contains other functional units including DMA, interrupt

controllers, timers, power management, system management, GPIO, and RTC.

8.6 Serial Peripheral Interface

The Intel 3420 implements a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) as an alternative interface for the BIOS

flash device. An SPI flash device can be used as a replacement for the FWH, and is required to

support Gigabit Ethernet, Intel

Technology.

The Intel 3420 chipset supports up to two SPI flash devices with speed up to 50MHz using two-chip

select pins.

8.7 Compatibility Module

The DMA controller incorporates the logic of two 82C37 DMA controllers, with seven independently

programmable channels. Channels 0–3 are hardwired to 8-bit, count-by-byte transfers, and channels

PowerEdge T310 Technical Guide

Active Management Technology, and integrated Intel Quiet System

3420 processor series chipset and the Intel