The PCI to Channel Adapter (PCCA)

The PCI to Channel Adapter from Sunhillo Corporation is a single board intelligent adapter that attaches a PCI bus IBM RS/6000 or Sun Microsystems SPARC platform to an IBM System/370 Block or Byte Multiplexer Channel. It supports up to 256 subchannels in excess of 100 kilobytes per second in burst mode. AIX, SOLARIS, and Windows NT/2000 drivers are available which can be used for emulation of various front-end processors or cluster controllers. The PCCA can be programmed to emulate different types of control unit architectures as seen from the System/370 host. Firmware for the on-board processor is stored in non-volatile programmable memory. Its contents can be overwritten with data coming over the PCI bus, 370 Channel, or via an RS-232 serial port.

Channel Interface

The PCCA supports connectivity to the System/370/390 Block or Byte Multiplexer Channel.It can respond to all possible 256 device addresses or any Single-Tag Interlock, High-Speed Interlock, 3.0 MB/sec streaming or 4.5 MB/sec streaming. Interlock-mode transfer rate depends on bus and tag cable lengths and can reach 1.2 and 2.5 MB/sec for Single-Tag and High-Speed respectively.

The PCCA's control unit emulation complies with IBM's "Original Equipment Manufacturers' Information" (GA22-6974-09) and the FIPS-60 specifications. Features supported include command-retry, high-speed transfer, and data streaming.

PCI BUS

A Bus Master Interface Controller (BMIC) chip set controls PCI accesses. The BMIC can transfer data at a peak rate of 40 MB/sec, exercising 100 nsec bus master data streaming. It responds as a bus slave in both I/O and memory address spaces and can drive the 32-bit PCI address as master.

Data Integrity

The PCCA is ideal for communications and data base applications requiring a high level of operative reliability. The 370PCCA supports a thorough self-test and assures detection of intermediate hardware failures during functional operation. Multiple PCCAs can be connected to the PCI bus and operate concurrently. This configuration is particularly useful in applications requiring fault-tolerance or access to multiple System/370/390 hosts.

System Considerations

An 80-pin twisted pair shielded cable connects the 370PCCA to the Channel Tail Gate assembly, which houses the following components:

· Four Bus/Tag in/out serpentine channel connectors
· Channel Bus/Tag in/out drivers and receivers
· Bus/Tag wrap test circuitry
· 80-pin flat cable shielded connector
· Diagnostic support RS-232 DB-9 connector
· Online/offline switch
· Three LEDs: green = Online, yellow = Busy, red = Fault
· Channel select in/out propagation relay and high/low configuration jumpers