The Async memcpy API
Overview
ESP32-C6 has a DMA engine which can help to offload internal memory copy operations from the CPU in a asynchronous way.
The async memcpy API wraps all DMA configurations and operations, the signature of esp_async_memcpy() is almost the same to the standard libc one.
Thanks to the benefit of the DMA, we don’t have to wait for each memory copy to be done before we issue another memcpy request. By the way, it’s still possible to know when memcpy is finished by listening in the memcpy callback function.
Configure and Install driver
esp_async_memcpy_install() is used to install the driver with user’s configuration. Please note that async memcpy has to be called with the handle returned from esp_async_memcpy_install().
Driver configuration is described in async_memcpy_config_t:
backlog: This is used to configure the maximum number of DMA operations being processed at the same time.sram_trans_align: Declare SRAM alignment for both data address and copy size, set to zero if the data has no restriction in alignment. If set to a quadruple value (i.e. 4X), the driver will enable the burst mode internally, which is helpful for some performance related application.psram_trans_align: Declare PSRAM alignment for both data address and copy size. User has to give it a valid value (only 16, 32, 64 are supported) if the destination of memcpy is located in PSRAM. The default alignment (i.e. 16) will be applied if it’s set to zero. Internally, the driver configures the size of block used by DMA to access PSRAM, according to the alignment.flags: This is used to enable some special driver features.
ASYNC_MEMCPY_DEFAULT_CONFIG provides a default configuration, which specifies the backlog to 8.
async_memcpy_config_t config = ASYNC_MEMCPY_DEFAULT_CONFIG();
// update the maximum data stream supported by underlying DMA engine
config.backlog = 16;
async_memcpy_t driver = NULL;
ESP_ERROR_CHECK(esp_async_memcpy_install(&config, &driver)); // install driver, return driver handle
Send memory copy request
esp_async_memcpy() is the API to send memory copy request to DMA engine. It must be called after driver is installed successfully. This API is thread safe, so it can be called from different tasks.
Different from the libc version of memcpy, user should also pass a callback to esp_async_memcpy(), if it’s necessary to be notified when the memory copy is done. The callback is executed in the ISR context, make sure you won’t violate the restriction applied to ISR handler.
Besides that, the callback function should reside in IRAM space by applying IRAM_ATTR attribute. The prototype of the callback function is async_memcpy_isr_cb_t, please note that, the callback function should return true if it wakes up a high priority task by some API like xSemaphoreGiveFromISR().
// Callback implementation, running in ISR context
static IRAM_ATTR bool my_async_memcpy_cb(async_memcpy_t mcp_hdl, async_memcpy_event_t *event, void *cb_args)
{
SemaphoreHandle_t sem = (SemaphoreHandle_t)cb_args;
BaseType_t high_task_wakeup = pdFALSE;
xSemaphoreGiveFromISR(semphr, &high_task_wakeup); // high_task_wakeup set to pdTRUE if some high priority task unblocked
return high_task_wakeup == pdTRUE;
}
// Create a semaphore used to report the completion of async memcpy
SemaphoreHandle_t semphr = xSemaphoreCreateBinary();
// Called from user's context
ESP_ERROR_CHECK(esp_async_memcpy(driver_handle, to, from, copy_len, my_async_memcpy_cb, my_semaphore));
// Do something else here
xSemaphoreTake(my_semaphore, portMAX_DELAY); // Wait until the buffer copy is done
Uninstall driver (optional)
esp_async_memcpy_uninstall() is used to uninstall asynchronous memcpy driver. It’s not necessary to uninstall the driver after each memcpy operation. If you know your application won’t use this driver anymore, then this API can recycle the memory for you.
ETM Event
Async memory copy is able to generate an event when one async memcpy operation is done. This event can be used to interact with the ETM module. You can call esp_async_memcpy_new_etm_event() to get the ETM event handle.
For how to connect the event to an ETM channel, please refer to the ETM documentation.
API Reference
Header File
Functions
-
esp_err_t esp_async_memcpy_install(const async_memcpy_config_t *config, async_memcpy_t *asmcp)
Install async memcpy driver.
- 参数
config – [in] Configuration of async memcpy
asmcp – [out] Handle of async memcpy that returned from this API. If driver installation is failed, asmcp would be assigned to NULL.
- 返回
ESP_OK: Install async memcpy driver successfully
ESP_ERR_INVALID_ARG: Install async memcpy driver failed because of invalid argument
ESP_ERR_NO_MEM: Install async memcpy driver failed because out of memory
ESP_FAIL: Install async memcpy driver failed because of other error
-
esp_err_t esp_async_memcpy_uninstall(async_memcpy_t asmcp)
Uninstall async memcpy driver.
- 参数
asmcp – [in] Handle of async memcpy driver that returned from esp_async_memcpy_install
- 返回
ESP_OK: Uninstall async memcpy driver successfully
ESP_ERR_INVALID_ARG: Uninstall async memcpy driver failed because of invalid argument
ESP_FAIL: Uninstall async memcpy driver failed because of other error
-
esp_err_t esp_async_memcpy(async_memcpy_t asmcp, void *dst, void *src, size_t n, async_memcpy_isr_cb_t cb_isr, void *cb_args)
Send an asynchronous memory copy request.
备注
The callback function is invoked in interrupt context, never do blocking jobs in the callback.
- 参数
asmcp – [in] Handle of async memcpy driver that returned from esp_async_memcpy_install
dst – [in] Destination address (copy to)
src – [in] Source address (copy from)
n – [in] Number of bytes to copy
cb_isr – [in] Callback function, which got invoked in interrupt context. Set to NULL can bypass the callback.
cb_args – [in] User defined argument to be passed to the callback function
- 返回
ESP_OK: Send memory copy request successfully
ESP_ERR_INVALID_ARG: Send memory copy request failed because of invalid argument
ESP_FAIL: Send memory copy request failed because of other error
-
esp_err_t esp_async_memcpy_new_etm_event(async_memcpy_t asmcp, async_memcpy_etm_event_t event_type, esp_etm_event_handle_t *out_event)
Get the ETM event handle for async memcpy done signal.
备注
The created ETM event object can be deleted later by calling
esp_etm_del_event- 参数
asmcp – [in] Handle of async memcpy driver that returned from
esp_async_memcpy_installevent_type – [in] ETM event type
out_event – [out] Returned ETM event handle
- 返回
- 返回
ESP_OK: Get ETM event successfully
ESP_ERR_INVALID_ARG: Get ETM event failed because of invalid argument
ESP_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED: Get ETM event failed because the DMA hardware doesn’t support ETM submodule
ESP_FAIL: Get ETM event failed because of other error
Structures
-
struct async_memcpy_event_t
Type of async memcpy event object.
Public Members
-
void *data
Event data
-
void *data
-
struct async_memcpy_config_t
Type of async memcpy configuration.
Public Members
-
uint32_t backlog
Maximum number of streams that can be handled simultaneously
-
size_t sram_trans_align
DMA transfer alignment (both in size and address) for SRAM memory
-
size_t psram_trans_align
DMA transfer alignment (both in size and address) for PSRAM memory
-
uint32_t flags
Extra flags to control async memcpy feature
-
uint32_t backlog
Macros
-
ASYNC_MEMCPY_DEFAULT_CONFIG()
Default configuration for async memcpy.
Type Definitions
-
typedef struct async_memcpy_context_t *async_memcpy_t
Type of async memcpy handle.
-
typedef bool (*async_memcpy_isr_cb_t)(async_memcpy_t mcp_hdl, async_memcpy_event_t *event, void *cb_args)
Type of async memcpy interrupt callback function.
备注
User can call OS primitives (semaphore, mutex, etc) in the callback function. Keep in mind, if any OS primitive wakes high priority task up, the callback should return true.
- Param mcp_hdl
Handle of async memcpy
- Param event
Event object, which contains related data, reserved for future
- Param cb_args
User defined arguments, passed from esp_async_memcpy function
- Return
Whether a high priority task is woken up by the callback function