Texas Instruments Incorporated
PCIE PERIPHERAL SHARING

Abstract:

A peripheral proxy subsystem is placed between multiple hosts, each having a root controller, and single root virtualization (SR-IOV) peripheral devices that are to be shared. The peripheral proxy subsystem provides a root controller for coupling to the endpoint of the SR-IOV peripheral device or devices and multiple endpoints for coupling to the root controllers of the hosts. The peripheral proxy subsystem maps the virtual functions of an SR-IOV peripheral device to the multiple endpoints as desired to allow the virtual functions to be allocated to the hosts. The physical function of the SR-IOV peripheral device is managed by the peripheral proxy device to provide the desired number of virtual functions. The virtual functions of the SR-IOV peripheral device are then presented to the appropriate host as a physical function or a virtual function.