• Linux 7.0 Further Prepares For Intel Diamond Rapids With NTB Driver Support The upstream Linux kernel appears largely ready for Intel’s next-generation Xeon Diamond Rapids processors as the successor to Granite Rapids. • Most of the driver support appears to have been settled for a while with just some stragglers remaining. • With the ongoing Linux 7.0 kernel one new addition for Diamond Rapids is NTB driver support. • The NTB driver is for the non-transparent bridge handling for allowing separate memory systems from two or more computers to leverage the same PCI Express fabric. • This allows for high speed data transfers and DMA between Xeon platforms using PCIe for cases like distributed storage, compute offloading, high availability clusters, and more. • To the existing Intel NTB hardware driver is now having Intel Gen6 NTB support in place for Diamond Rapids.
Article Summaries:
- The Linux 7.0 kernel now includes NTB (Non‑Transparent Bridge) driver support for Intel’s upcoming Xeon “Diamond Rapids” processors. The update adds Intel Gen6 NTB support, requiring only a handful of code changes to register Diamond Rapids device IDs and adjust the PPD0 offset. This enables high‑speed PCIe‑based data transfers and DMA across separate memory systems, useful for distributed storage, compute offloading, and high‑availability clusters. The pull also introduces DebugFS enhancements, a new “tx_memcpy_offload” module parameter, and other minor refinements, positioning the kernel to fully support Diamond Rapids’ PCIe 6.0 connectivity.
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