8. Wireless Baseband Device Library

The Wireless Baseband library provides a common programming framework that abstracts HW accelerators based on FPGA and/or Fixed Function Accelerators that assist with 3GPP Physical Layer processing. Furthermore, it decouples the application from the compute-intensive wireless functions by abstracting their optimized libraries to appear as virtual bbdev devices.

The functional scope of the BBDEV library are those functions in relation to the 3GPP Layer 1 signal processing (channel coding, modulation, …).

The framework currently only supports FEC function.

8.1. Design Principles

The Wireless Baseband library follows the same ideology of DPDK’s Ethernet Device and Crypto Device frameworks. Wireless Baseband provides a generic acceleration abstraction framework which supports both physical (hardware) and virtual (software) wireless acceleration functions.

8.2. Device Management

8.2.1. Device Creation

Physical bbdev devices are discovered during the PCI probe/enumeration of the EAL function which is executed at DPDK initialization, based on their PCI device identifier, each unique PCI BDF (bus/bridge, device, function).

Virtual devices can be created by two mechanisms, either using the EAL command line options or from within the application using an EAL API directly.

From the command line using the –vdev EAL option

--vdev 'baseband_turbo_sw,max_nb_queues=8,socket_id=0'

Or using the rte_vdev_init API within the application code.

rte_vdev_init("baseband_turbo_sw", "max_nb_queues=2,socket_id=0")

All virtual bbdev devices support the following initialization parameters:

  • max_nb_queues - maximum number of queues supported by the device.

  • socket_id - socket on which to allocate the device resources on.

8.2.2. Device Identification

Each device, whether virtual or physical is uniquely designated by two identifiers:

  • A unique device index used to designate the bbdev device in all functions exported by the bbdev API.

  • A device name used to designate the bbdev device in console messages, for administration or debugging purposes. For ease of use, the port name includes the port index.

8.2.3. Device Configuration

From the application point of view, each instance of a bbdev device consists of one or more queues identified by queue IDs. While different devices may have different capabilities (e.g. support different operation types), all queues on a device support identical configuration possibilities. A queue is configured for only one type of operation and is configured at initialization time. When an operation is enqueued to a specific queue ID, the result is dequeued from the same queue ID.

Configuration of a device has two different levels: configuration that applies to the whole device, and configuration that applies to a single queue.

Device configuration is applied with rte_bbdev_setup_queues(dev_id,num_queues,socket_id) and queue configuration is applied with rte_bbdev_queue_configure(dev_id,queue_id,conf). Note that, although all queues on a device support same capabilities, they can be configured differently and will then behave differently. Devices supporting interrupts can enable them by using rte_bbdev_intr_enable(dev_id).

The configuration of each bbdev device includes the following operations:

  • Allocation of resources, including hardware resources if a physical device.

  • Resetting the device into a well-known default state.

  • Initialization of statistics counters.

The rte_bbdev_setup_queues API is used to setup queues for a bbdev device.

int rte_bbdev_setup_queues(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t num_queues,
         int socket_id);
  • num_queues argument identifies the total number of queues to setup for this device.

  • socket_id specifies which socket will be used to allocate the memory.

The rte_bbdev_intr_enable API is used to enable interrupts for a bbdev device, if supported by the driver. Should be called before starting the device.

int rte_bbdev_intr_enable(uint16_t dev_id);

8.2.4. Queues Configuration

Each bbdev devices queue is individually configured through the rte_bbdev_queue_configure() API. Each queue resources may be allocated on a specified socket.

struct rte_bbdev_queue_conf {
    int socket;
    uint32_t queue_size;
    uint8_t priority;
    bool deferred_start;
    enum rte_bbdev_op_type op_type;
};

8.2.5. Device & Queues Management

After initialization, devices are in a stopped state, so must be started by the application. If an application is finished using a device it can close the device. Once closed, it cannot be restarted.

int rte_bbdev_start(uint16_t dev_id)
int rte_bbdev_stop(uint16_t dev_id)
int rte_bbdev_close(uint16_t dev_id)
int rte_bbdev_queue_start(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id)
int rte_bbdev_queue_stop(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id)

By default, all queues are started when the device is started, but they can be stopped individually.

int rte_bbdev_queue_start(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id)
int rte_bbdev_queue_stop(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id)

8.2.6. Logical Cores, Memory and Queues Relationships

The bbdev poll mode device driver library supports NUMA architecture, in which a processor’s logical cores and interfaces utilize it’s local memory. Therefore with baseband operations, the mbuf being operated on should be allocated from memory pools created in the local memory. The buffers should, if possible, remain on the local processor to obtain the best performance results and buffer descriptors should be populated with mbufs allocated from a mempool allocated from local memory.

The run-to-completion model also performs better, especially in the case of virtual bbdev devices, if the baseband operation and data buffers are in local memory instead of a remote processor’s memory. This is also true for the pipe-line model provided all logical cores used are located on the same processor.

Multiple logical cores should never share the same queue for enqueuing operations or dequeuing operations on the same bbdev device since this would require global locks and hinder performance. It is however possible to use a different logical core to dequeue an operation on a queue pair from the logical core which it was enqueued on. This means that a baseband burst enqueue/dequeue APIs are a logical place to transition from one logical core to another in a packet processing pipeline.

8.3. Device Operation Capabilities

Capabilities (in terms of operations supported, max number of queues, etc.) identify what a bbdev is capable of performing that differs from one device to another. For the full scope of the bbdev capability see the definition of the structure in the DPDK API Reference.

struct rte_bbdev_op_cap;

A device reports its capabilities when registering itself in the bbdev framework. With the aid of this capabilities mechanism, an application can query devices to discover which operations within the 3GPP physical layer they are capable of performing. Below is an example of the capabilities for a PMD it supports in relation to Turbo Encoding and Decoding operations.

static const struct rte_bbdev_op_cap bbdev_capabilities[] = {
    {
        .type = RTE_BBDEV_OP_TURBO_DEC,
        .cap.turbo_dec = {
            .capability_flags =
                RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_SUBBLOCK_DEINTERLEAVE |
                RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_POS_LLR_1_BIT_IN |
                RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_NEG_LLR_1_BIT_IN |
                RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_CRC_TYPE_24B |
                RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_DEC_TB_CRC_24B_KEEP |
                RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_EARLY_TERMINATION,
            .max_llr_modulus = 16,
            .num_buffers_src = RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_MAX_CODE_BLOCKS,
            .num_buffers_hard_out =
                    RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_MAX_CODE_BLOCKS,
            .num_buffers_soft_out = 0,
        }
    },
    {
        .type   = RTE_BBDEV_OP_TURBO_ENC,
        .cap.turbo_enc = {
            .capability_flags =
                    RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_CRC_24B_ATTACH |
                    RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_CRC_24A_ATTACH |
                    RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_RATE_MATCH |
                    RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_RV_INDEX_BYPASS,
            .num_buffers_src = RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_MAX_CODE_BLOCKS,
            .num_buffers_dst = RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_MAX_CODE_BLOCKS,
        }
    },
    RTE_BBDEV_END_OF_CAPABILITIES_LIST()
};

8.3.1. Capabilities Discovery

Discovering the features and capabilities of a bbdev device poll mode driver is achieved through the rte_bbdev_info_get() function.

int rte_bbdev_info_get(uint16_t dev_id, struct rte_bbdev_info *dev_info)

This allows the user to query a specific bbdev PMD and get all the device capabilities. The rte_bbdev_info structure provides two levels of information:

  • Device relevant information, like: name and related rte_bus.

  • Driver specific information, as defined by the struct rte_bbdev_driver_info structure, this is where capabilities reside along with other specifics like: maximum queue sizes and priority level.

struct rte_bbdev_driver_info {
	/** Driver name */
	const char *driver_name;

	/** Maximum number of queues supported by the device */
	unsigned int max_num_queues;
	/** Maximum number of queues supported per operation type */
	unsigned int num_queues[RTE_BBDEV_OP_TYPE_SIZE_MAX];
	/** Priority level supported per operation type */
	unsigned int queue_priority[RTE_BBDEV_OP_TYPE_SIZE_MAX];
	/** Queue size limit (queue size must also be power of 2) */
	uint32_t queue_size_lim;
	/** Set if device off-loads operation to hardware  */
	bool hardware_accelerated;
	/** Max value supported by queue priority for DL */
	uint8_t max_dl_queue_priority;
	/** Max value supported by queue priority for UL */
	uint8_t max_ul_queue_priority;
	/** Set if device supports per-queue interrupts */
	bool queue_intr_supported;
	/** Device Status */
	enum rte_bbdev_device_status device_status;
	/** HARQ memory available in kB */
	uint32_t harq_buffer_size;
	/** Minimum alignment of buffers, in bytes */
	uint16_t min_alignment;
	/** Byte endianness (RTE_BIG_ENDIAN/RTE_LITTLE_ENDIAN) supported
	 *  for input/output data
	 */
	uint8_t data_endianness;
	/** Default queue configuration used if none is supplied  */
	struct rte_bbdev_queue_conf default_queue_conf;
	/** Device operation capabilities */
	const struct rte_bbdev_op_cap *capabilities;
	/** Device cpu_flag requirements */
	const enum rte_cpu_flag_t *cpu_flag_reqs;
	/** FFT windowing width for 2048 FFT - size defined in capability. */
	uint16_t *fft_window_width;
};
struct rte_bbdev_info {
	int socket_id;  /**< NUMA socket that device is on */
	const char *dev_name;  /**< Unique device name */
	const struct rte_device *device; /**< Device Information */
	uint16_t num_queues;  /**< Number of queues currently configured */
	bool started;  /**< Set if device is currently started */
	struct rte_bbdev_driver_info drv;  /**< Info from device driver */
};

8.3.2. Capabilities details for LDPC Decoder

On top of the RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_<*> capabilities the device also exposes the LLR numerical representation expected by the decoder as a fractional fixed-point representation. For instance, when the representation (llr_size, llr_decimals) = (8, 2) respectively, this means that each input LLR in the data provided by the application must be computed as 8 total bits (including sign bit) where 2 of these are fractions bits (also referred to as S8.2 format). It is up to the user application during LLR generation to scale the LLR according to this optimal numerical representation. Any mis-scaled LLR would cause wireless performance degradation.

The harq_buffer_size exposes the amount of dedicated DDR made available for the device operation. This is specific for accelerator non-integrated on the CPU (separate PCIe device) which may include separate on-card memory.

8.3.3. Capabilities details for FFT function

The total number of distinct time windows supported for the post-FFT point-wise multiplication is exposed as fft_windows_num. The window_index provided for each cyclic shift in each rte_bbdev_op_fft operation is expected to be limited to that size.

The information related to the width of each of these pre-configured window is also exposed using the fft_window_width array. This provides the number of non-null samples used for each window index when scaling back the size to a reference of 1024 FFT. The actual shape size is effectively scaled up or down based on the dynamic size of the FFT operation being used.

This allows to distinguish different version of the flexible pointwise windowing applied to the FFT and exposes this platform configuration to the application.

8.3.4. Other optional capabilities exposed during device discovery

The device status can be used to expose additional information related to the state of the platform notably based on its configuration state or related to error management (correctable or non).

The queue topology exposed to the device is provided on top of the capabilities. This provides the number of queues available for the exposed bbdev device (the physical device may have more) for each operation as well as the different level of priority available for arbitration. These are based on the arrays and parameters num_queues, queue_priority, max_num_queues, queue_size_lim.

8.4. Operation Processing

Scheduling of baseband operations on DPDK’s application data path is performed using a burst oriented asynchronous API set. A queue on a bbdev device accepts a burst of baseband operations using enqueue burst API. On physical bbdev devices the enqueue burst API will place the operations to be processed on the device’s hardware input queue, for virtual devices the processing of the baseband operations is usually completed during the enqueue call to the bbdev device. The dequeue burst API will retrieve any processed operations available from the queue on the bbdev device, from physical devices this is usually directly from the device’s processed queue, and for virtual device’s from a rte_ring where processed operations are placed after being processed on the enqueue call.

8.4.1. Enqueue / Dequeue Burst APIs

The burst enqueue API uses a bbdev device identifier and a queue identifier to specify the bbdev device queue to schedule the processing on. The num_ops parameter is the number of operations to process which are supplied in the ops array of rte_bbdev_*_op structures. The enqueue function returns the number of operations it actually enqueued for processing, a return value equal to num_ops means that all packets have been enqueued.

uint16_t rte_bbdev_enqueue_enc_ops(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id,
        struct rte_bbdev_enc_op **ops, uint16_t num_ops)

uint16_t rte_bbdev_enqueue_dec_ops(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id,
        struct rte_bbdev_dec_op **ops, uint16_t num_ops)

The dequeue API uses the same format as the enqueue API of processed but the num_ops and ops parameters are now used to specify the max processed operations the user wishes to retrieve and the location in which to store them. The API call returns the actual number of processed operations returned, this can never be larger than num_ops.

uint16_t rte_bbdev_dequeue_enc_ops(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id,
        struct rte_bbdev_enc_op **ops, uint16_t num_ops)

uint16_t rte_bbdev_dequeue_dec_ops(uint16_t dev_id, uint16_t queue_id,
        struct rte_bbdev_dec_op **ops, uint16_t num_ops)

8.4.2. Operation Representation

An encode bbdev operation is represented by rte_bbdev_enc_op structure, and by rte_bbdev_dec_op for decode. These structures act as metadata containers for all necessary information required for the bbdev operation to be processed on a particular bbdev device poll mode driver.

struct rte_bbdev_enc_op {
    int status;
    struct rte_mempool *mempool;
    void *opaque_data;
    union {
        struct rte_bbdev_op_turbo_enc turbo_enc;
        struct rte_bbdev_op_ldpc_enc ldpc_enc;
    }
};

struct rte_bbdev_dec_op {
    int status;
    struct rte_mempool *mempool;
    void *opaque_data;
    union {
        struct rte_bbdev_op_turbo_dec turbo_enc;
        struct rte_bbdev_op_ldpc_dec ldpc_enc;
    }
};

The operation structure by itself defines the operation type. It includes an operation status, a reference to the operation specific data, which can vary in size and content depending on the operation being provisioned. It also contains the source mempool for the operation, if it is allocated from a mempool.

If bbdev operations are allocated from a bbdev operation mempool, see next section, there is also the ability to allocate private memory with the operation for applications purposes.

Application software is responsible for specifying all the operation specific fields in the rte_bbdev_*_op structure which are then used by the bbdev PMD to process the requested operation.

8.4.3. Operation Management and Allocation

The bbdev library provides an API set for managing bbdev operations which utilize the Mempool Library to allocate operation buffers. Therefore, it ensures that the bbdev operation is interleaved optimally across the channels and ranks for optimal processing.

struct rte_mempool *
rte_bbdev_op_pool_create(const char *name, enum rte_bbdev_op_type type,
        unsigned int num_elements, unsigned int cache_size,
        int socket_id)

rte_bbdev_*_op_alloc_bulk() and rte_bbdev_*_op_free_bulk() are used to allocate bbdev operations of a specific type from a given bbdev operation mempool.

int rte_bbdev_enc_op_alloc_bulk(struct rte_mempool *mempool,
        struct rte_bbdev_enc_op **ops, uint16_t num_ops)

int rte_bbdev_dec_op_alloc_bulk(struct rte_mempool *mempool,
        struct rte_bbdev_dec_op **ops, uint16_t num_ops)

rte_bbdev_*_op_free_bulk() is called by the application to return an operation to its allocating pool.

void rte_bbdev_dec_op_free_bulk(struct rte_bbdev_dec_op **ops,
        unsigned int num_ops)
void rte_bbdev_enc_op_free_bulk(struct rte_bbdev_enc_op **ops,
        unsigned int num_ops)

8.4.4. BBDEV Inbound/Outbound Memory

The bbdev operation structure contains all the mutable data relating to performing Turbo and LDPC coding on a referenced mbuf data buffer. It is used for either encode or decode operations.

Table 8.1 Operation I/O

FEC

In

Out

Turbo Encode

input

output

Turbo Decode

input

hard output

soft output (optional)

LDPC Encode

input

output

LDPC Decode

input

hard output

HQ combine (optional)

HQ combine (optional)

soft output (optional)

It is expected that the application provides input and output mbuf pointers allocated and ready to use.

The baseband framework supports FEC coding on Code Blocks (CB) and Transport Blocks (TB).

For the output buffer(s), the application is required to provide an allocated and free mbuf, to which the resulting output will be written.

The support of split “scattered” buffers is a driver-specific feature, so it is reported individually by the supporting driver as a capability.

Input and output data buffers are identified by rte_bbdev_op_data structure, as follows:

struct rte_bbdev_op_data {
    struct rte_mbuf *data;
    uint32_t offset;
    uint32_t length;
};

This structure has three elements:

  • data: This is the mbuf data structure representing the data for BBDEV operation.

    This mbuf pointer can point to one Code Block (CB) data buffer or multiple CBs contiguously located next to each other. A Transport Block (TB) represents a whole piece of data that is divided into one or more CBs. Maximum number of CBs can be contained in one TB is defined by RTE_BBDEV_(TURBO/LDPC)MAX_CODE_BLOCKS.

    An mbuf data structure cannot represent more than one TB. The smallest piece of data that can be contained in one mbuf is one CB. An mbuf can include one contiguous CB, subset of contiguous CBs that are belonging to one TB, or all contiguous CBs that belong to one TB.

    If a BBDEV PMD supports the extended capability “Scatter-Gather”, then it is capable of collecting (gathering) non-contiguous (scattered) data from multiple locations in the memory. This capability is reported by the capability flags:

    • RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_ENC_SCATTER_GATHER, RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_DEC_SCATTER_GATHER,

    • RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_ENC_SCATTER_GATHER, RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_DEC_SCATTER_GATHER.

    Chained mbuf data structures are only accepted if a BBDEV PMD supports this feature. A chained mbuf can represent one non-contiguous CB or multiple non-contiguous CBs. The first mbuf segment in the given chained mbuf represents the first piece of the CB. Offset is only applicable to the first segment. length is the total length of the CB.

    BBDEV driver is responsible for identifying where the split is and enqueue the split data to its internal queues.

    If BBDEV PMD does not support this feature, it will assume inbound mbuf data contains one segment.

    The output mbuf data though is always one segment, even if the input was a chained mbuf.

  • offset: This is the starting point of the BBDEV (encode/decode) operation, in bytes.

    BBDEV starts to read data past this offset. In case of chained mbuf, this offset applies only to the first mbuf segment.

  • length: This is the total data length to be processed in one operation, in bytes.

    In case the mbuf data is representing one CB, this is the length of the CB undergoing the operation. If it is for multiple CBs, this is the total length of those CBs undergoing the operation. If it is for one TB, this is the total length of the TB under operation. In case of chained mbuf, this data length includes the lengths of the “scattered” data segments undergoing the operation.

8.4.5. BBDEV Turbo Encode Operation

struct rte_bbdev_op_turbo_enc {
	/** The input CB or TB data */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data input;
	/** The rate matched CB or TB output buffer */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data output;
	/** Flags from rte_bbdev_op_te_flag_bitmasks */
	uint32_t op_flags;

	/** Rv index for rate matching [0:3] */
	uint8_t rv_index;
	/** [0 - TB : 1 - CB] */
	uint8_t code_block_mode;
	union {
		/** Struct which stores Code Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_enc_turbo_cb_params cb_params;
		/** Struct which stores Transport Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_enc_turbo_tb_params tb_params;
	};
};

The Turbo encode structure includes the input and output mbuf data pointers. The provided mbuf pointer of input needs to be big enough to stretch for extra CRC trailers.

Table 8.2 struct rte_bbdev_op_turbo_enc parameters

Parameter

Description

input

input CB or TB data

output

rate matched CB or TB output buffer

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

rv_index

redundancy version index [0..3]

code_block_mode

code block or transport block mode

cb_params

code block specific parameters (code block mode only)

tb_params

transport block specific parameters (transport block mode only)

The encode interface works on both the code block (CB) and the transport block (TB). An operation executes in “CB-mode” when the CB is standalone. While “TB-mode” executes when an operation performs on one or multiple CBs that belong to a TB. Therefore, a given data can be standalone CB, full-size TB or partial TB. Partial TB means that only a subset of CBs belonging to a bigger TB are being enqueued.

NOTE: It is assumed that all enqueued ops in one rte_bbdev_enqueue_enc_ops() call belong to one mode, either CB-mode or TB-mode.

In case that the TB is smaller than Z (6144 bits), then effectively the TB = CB. CRC24A is appended to the tail of the CB. The application is responsible for calculating and appending CRC24A before calling BBDEV in case that the underlying driver does not support CRC24A generation.

In CB-mode, CRC24A/B is an optional operation. The CB parameter k is the size of the CB (this maps to K as described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.2), this size is inclusive of CRC24A/B. The length is inclusive of CRC24A/B and equals to k in this case.

Not all BBDEV PMDs are capable of CRC24A/B calculation. Flags RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_CRC_24A_ATTACH and RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_CRC_24B_ATTACH informs the application with relevant capability. These flags can be set in the op_flags parameter to indicate to BBDEV to calculate and append CRC24A/B to CB before going forward with Turbo encoding.

Output format of the CB encode will have the encoded CB in e size output (this maps to E described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.4.1.2). The output mbuf buffer size needs to be big enough to hold the encoded buffer of size e.

In TB-mode, CRC24A is assumed to be pre-calculated and appended to the inbound TB mbuf data buffer. The output mbuf data structure is expected to be allocated by the application with enough room for the output data.

The difference between the partial and full-size TB is that we need to know the index of the first CB in this group and the number of CBs contained within. The first CB index is given by r but the number of the remaining CBs is calculated automatically by BBDEV before passing down to the driver.

The number of remaining CBs should not be confused with c. c is the total number of CBs that composes the whole TB (this maps to C as described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.2).

The length is total size of the CBs inclusive of any CRC24A and CRC24B in case they were appended by the application.

The case when one CB belongs to TB and is being enqueued individually to BBDEV, this case is considered as a special case of partial TB where its number of CBs is 1. Therefore, it requires to get processed in TB-mode.

The figure below visualizes the encoding of CBs using BBDEV interface in TB-mode. CB-mode is a reduced version, where only one CB exists:

../_images/turbo_tb_encode.svg

Fig. 8.3 Turbo encoding of Code Blocks in mbuf structure

8.4.6. BBDEV Turbo Decode Operation

struct rte_bbdev_op_turbo_dec {
	/** The Virtual Circular Buffer, wk, size 3*Kpi for each CB */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data input;
	/** The hard decisions buffer for the decoded output,
	 * size K for each CB
	 */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data hard_output;
	/** The soft LLR output buffer - optional */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data soft_output;

	/** Flags from rte_bbdev_op_td_flag_bitmasks */
	uint32_t op_flags;

	/** Rv index for rate matching [0:3] */
	uint8_t rv_index;
	/** The minimum number of iterations to perform in decoding all CBs in
	 * this operation - input
	 */
	uint8_t iter_min:4;
	/** The maximum number of iterations to perform in decoding all CBs in
	 * this operation - input
	 */
	uint8_t iter_max:4;
	/** The maximum number of iterations that were performed in decoding
	 * all CBs in this decode operation - output
	 */
	uint8_t iter_count;
	/** 5 bit extrinsic scale (scale factor on extrinsic info) */
	uint8_t ext_scale;
	/** Number of MAP engines to use in decode,
	 *  must be power of 2 (or 0 to auto-select)
	 */
	uint8_t num_maps;

	/** [0 - TB : 1 - CB] */
	uint8_t code_block_mode;
	union {
		/** Struct which stores Code Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_dec_turbo_cb_params cb_params;
		/** Struct which stores Transport Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_dec_turbo_tb_params tb_params;
	};
};

The Turbo decode structure includes the input, hard_output and optionally the soft_output mbuf data pointers.

Table 8.3 struct rte_bbdev_op_turbo_dec parameters

Parameter

Description

input

virtual circular buffer, wk, size 3*Kpi for each CB

hard output

hard decisions buffer, decoded output, size K for each CB

soft output

soft LLR output buffer (optional)

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

rv_index

redundancy version index [0..3]

iter_max

maximum number of iterations to perform in decode all CBs

iter_min

minimum number of iterations to perform in decoding all CBs

iter_count

number of iterations to performed in decoding all CBs

ext_scale

scale factor on extrinsic info (5 bits)

num_maps

number of MAP engines to use in decode

code_block_mode

code block or transport block mode

cb_params

code block specific parameters (code block mode only)

tb_params

transport block specific parameters (transport block mode only)

Similarly, the decode interface works on both the code block (CB) and the transport block (TB). An operation executes in “CB-mode” when the CB is standalone. While “TB-mode” executes when an operation performs on one or multiple CBs that belong to a TB. Therefore, a given data can be standalone CB, full-size TB or partial TB. Partial TB means that only a subset of CBs belonging to a bigger TB are being enqueued.

NOTE: It is assumed that all enqueued ops in one rte_bbdev_enqueue_dec_ops() call belong to one mode, either CB-mode or TB-mode.

The CB parameter k is the size of the decoded CB (this maps to K as described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.2), this size is inclusive of CRC24A/B. The length is inclusive of CRC24A/B and equals to k in this case.

The input encoded CB data is the Virtual Circular Buffer data stream, wk, with the null padding included as described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.4.1.2 and shown in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.4.1 Figure 5.1.4-1. The size of the virtual circular buffer is 3*Kpi, where Kpi is the 32 byte aligned value of K, as specified in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.4.1.1.

Each byte in the input circular buffer is the LLR value of each bit of the original CB.

hard_output is a mandatory capability that all BBDEV PMDs support. This is the decoded CBs of K sizes (CRC24A/B is the last 24-bit in each decoded CB). Soft output is an optional capability for BBDEV PMDs. Setting flag RTE_BBDEV_TURBO_DEC_TB_CRC_24B_KEEP in op_flags directs BBDEV to retain CRC24B at the end of each CB. This might be useful for the application in debug mode. An LLR rate matched output is computed in the soft_output buffer structure for the given CB parameter e size (this maps to E described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.4.1.2). The output mbuf buffer size needs to be big enough to hold the encoded buffer of size e.

The first CB Virtual Circular Buffer (VCB) index is given by r but the number of the remaining CB VCBs is calculated automatically by BBDEV before passing down to the driver.

The number of remaining CB VCBs should not be confused with c. c is the total number of CBs that composes the whole TB (this maps to C as described in 3GPP TS 36.212 section 5.1.2).

The length is total size of the CBs inclusive of any CRC24A and CRC24B in case they were appended by the application.

The case when one CB belongs to TB and is being enqueued individually to BBDEV, this case is considered as a special case of partial TB where its number of CBs is 1. Therefore, it requires to get processed in TB-mode.

The output mbuf data structure is expected to be allocated by the application with enough room for the output data.

The figure below visualizes the decoding of CBs using BBDEV interface in TB-mode. CB-mode is a reduced version, where only one CB exists:

../_images/turbo_tb_decode.svg

Fig. 8.4 Turbo decoding of Code Blocks in mbuf structure

8.4.7. BBDEV LDPC Encode Operation

The operation flags that can be set for each LDPC encode operation are given below.

NOTE: The actual operation flags that may be used with a specific BBDEV PMD are dependent on the driver capabilities as reported via rte_bbdev_info_get(), and may be a subset of those below.

Description of LDPC encode capability flags

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERLEAVER_BYPASS

Set to bypass bit-level interleaver on output stream

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_RATE_MATCH

Set to enabling the RATE_MATCHING processing

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24A_ATTACH

Set to attach transport block CRC-24A

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24B_ATTACH

Set to attach code block CRC-24B

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_16_ATTACH

Set to attach code block CRC-16

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_ENC_INTERRUPTS

Set if a device supports encoder dequeue interrupts

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_ENC_SCATTER_GATHER

Set if a device supports scatter-gather functionality

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_ENC_CONCATENATION

Set if a device supports concatenation of non byte aligned output

The structure passed for each LDPC encode operation is given below, with the operation flags forming a bitmask in the op_flags field.

struct rte_bbdev_op_ldpc_enc {
	/** The input TB or CB data */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data input;
	/** The rate matched TB or CB output buffer */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data output;

	/** Flags from rte_bbdev_op_ldpcenc_flag_bitmasks */
	uint32_t op_flags;

	/** Rate matching redundancy version */
	uint8_t rv_index;
	/** 1: LDPC Base graph 1, 2: LDPC Base graph 2.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.2.2]
	 */
	uint8_t basegraph;
	/** Zc, LDPC lifting size.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.2.2]
	 */
	uint16_t z_c;
	/** Ncb, length of the circular buffer in bits.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.4.2.1]
	 */
	uint16_t n_cb;
	/** Qm, modulation order {2,4,6,8,10}.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.4.2.2]
	 */
	uint8_t q_m;
	/** Number of Filler bits, n_filler = K – K’
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212 section 5.2.2]
	 */
	uint16_t n_filler;
	/** [0 - TB : 1 - CB] */
	uint8_t code_block_mode;
	union {
		/** Struct which stores Code Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_enc_ldpc_cb_params cb_params;
		/** Struct which stores Transport Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_enc_ldpc_tb_params tb_params;
	};
};

The LDPC encode parameters are set out in the table below.

Parameter

Description

input

input CB or TB data

output

rate matched CB or TB output buffer

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

rv_index

redundancy version index [0..3]

basegraph

Basegraph 1 or 2

z_c

Zc, LDPC lifting size

n_cb

Ncb, length of the circular buffer in bits.

q_m

Qm, modulation order {2,4,6,8,10}

n_filler

number of filler bits

code_block_mode

code block or transport block mode

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

cb_params

code block specific parameters (code block mode only)

e

E, length of the rate matched output sequence in bits

tb_params

transport block specific parameters (transport block mode only)

c

number of CBs in the TB or partial TB

r

index of the first CB in the inbound mbuf data

c_ab

number of CBs that use Ea before switching to Eb

ea

Ea, length of the RM output sequence in bits, r < cab

eb

Eb, length of the RM output sequence in bits, r >= cab

The mbuf input input is mandatory for all BBDEV PMDs and is the incoming code block or transport block data.

The mbuf output output is mandatory and is the encoded CB(s). In CB-mode ut contains the encoded CB of size e (E in 3GPP TS 38.212 section 6.2.5). In TB-mode it contains multiple contiguous encoded CBs of size ea or eb. The output buffer is allocated by the application with enough room for the output data.

The encode interface works on both a code block (CB) and a transport block (TB) basis.

NOTE: All enqueued ops in one rte_bbdev_enqueue_enc_ops() call belong to one mode, either CB-mode or TB-mode.

The valid modes of operation are:

  • CB-mode: one CB (attach CRC24B if required)

  • CB-mode: one CB making up one TB (attach CRC24A if required)

  • TB-mode: one or more CB of a partial TB (attach CRC24B(s) if required)

  • TB-mode: one or more CB of a complete TB (attach CRC24AB(s) if required)

In CB-mode if RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24A_ATTACH is set then CRC24A is appended to the CB. If RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24A_ATTACH is not set the application is responsible for calculating and appending CRC24A before calling BBDEV. The input data mbuf length is inclusive of CRC24A/B where present and is equal to the code block size K.

In TB-mode, CRC24A is assumed to be pre-calculated and appended to the inbound TB data buffer, unless the RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24A_ATTACH flag is set when it is the responsibility of BBDEV. The input data mbuf length is total size of the CBs inclusive of any CRC24A and CRC24B in the case they were appended by the application.

Not all BBDEV PMDs may be capable of CRC24A/B calculation. Flags RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24A_ATTACH and RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_24B_ATTACH inform the application of the relevant capability. These flags can be set in the op_flags parameter to indicate BBDEV to calculate and append CRC24A to CB before going forward with LDPC encoding.

The difference between the partial and full-size TB is that BBDEV needs the index of the first CB in this group and the number of CBs in the group. The first CB index is given by r but the number of the CBs is calculated by BBDEV before signalling to the driver.

The number of CBs in the group should not be confused with c, the total number of CBs in the full TB (C as per 3GPP TS 38.212 section 5.2.2)

Figure Fig. 8.3 above showing the Turbo encoding of CBs using BBDEV interface in TB-mode is also valid for LDPC encode.

8.4.8. BBDEV LDPC Decode Operation

The operation flags that can be set for each LDPC decode operation are given below.

NOTE: The actual operation flags that may be used with a specific BBDEV PMD are dependent on the driver capabilities as reported via rte_bbdev_info_get(), and may be a subset of those below.

Description of LDPC decode capability flags

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_TYPE_24A_CHECK

Set for transport block CRC-24A checking

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_TYPE_24B_CHECK

Set for code block CRC-24B checking

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_TYPE_24B_DROP

Set to drop the last CRC bits decoding output

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_CRC_TYPE_16_CHECK

Set for code block CRC-16 checking

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_DEINTERLEAVER_BYPASS

Set for bit-level de-interleaver bypass on input stream

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HQ_COMBINE_IN_ENABLE

Set for HARQ combined input stream enable

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HQ_COMBINE_OUT_ENABLE

Set for HARQ combined output stream enable

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_DECODE_BYPASS

Set for LDPC decoder bypass

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HQ_COMBINE_OUT_ENABLE must be set

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_DECODE_SOFT_OUT

Set for soft-output stream enable

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_SOFT_OUT_RM_BYPASS

Set for Rate-Matching bypass on soft-out stream

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_SOFT_OUT_DEINTERLEAVER_BYPASS

Set for bit-level de-interleaver bypass on soft-output stream

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_ITERATION_STOP_ENABLE

Set for iteration stopping on successful decode condition enable

Where a successful decode is a successful syndrome check

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_DEC_INTERRUPTS

Set if a device supports decoder dequeue interrupts

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_DEC_SCATTER_GATHER

Set if a device supports scatter-gather functionality

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HARQ_6BIT_COMPRESSION

Set if a device supports input/output HARQ compression Data is packed as 6 bits by dropping and saturating the MSBs

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_LLR_COMPRESSION

Set if a device supports input LLR compression Data is packed as 6 bits by dropping and saturating the MSBs

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERNAL_HARQ_MEMORY_IN_ENABLE

Set if a device supports HARQ input to device’s internal memory

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERNAL_HARQ_MEMORY_OUT_ENABLE

Set if a device supports HARQ output to device’s internal memory

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERNAL_HARQ_MEMORY_LOOPBACK

Set if a device supports loopback access to HARQ internal memory

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERNAL_HARQ_MEMORY_FILLERS

Set if a device includes LLR filler bits in HARQ circular buffer

RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HARQ_4BIT_COMPRESSION Set if a device supports input/output 4 bits HARQ compression

The structure passed for each LDPC decode operation is given below, with the operation flags forming a bitmask in the op_flags field.

struct rte_bbdev_op_ldpc_dec {
	/** The Virtual Circular Buffer for this code block, one LLR
	 * per bit of the original CB.
	 */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data input;
	/** The hard decisions buffer for the decoded output,
	 * size K for each CB
	 */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data hard_output;
	/** The soft LLR output LLR stream buffer - optional */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data soft_output;
	/** The HARQ combined LLR stream input buffer - optional */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data harq_combined_input;
	/** The HARQ combined LLR stream output buffer - optional */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data harq_combined_output;

	/** Flags from rte_bbdev_op_ldpcdec_flag_bitmasks */
	uint32_t op_flags;

	/** Rate matching redundancy version
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.4.2.1]
	 */
	uint8_t rv_index;
	/** The maximum number of iterations to perform in decoding CB in
	 *  this operation - input
	 */
	uint8_t iter_max;
	/** The number of iterations that were performed in decoding
	 * CB in this decode operation - output
	 */
	uint8_t iter_count;
	/** 1: LDPC Base graph 1, 2: LDPC Base graph 2.
	 * [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.2.2]
	 */
	uint8_t basegraph;
	/** Zc, LDPC lifting size.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.2.2]
	 */
	uint16_t z_c;
	/** Ncb, length of the circular buffer in bits.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.4.2.1]
	 */
	uint16_t n_cb;
	/** Qm, modulation order {1,2,4,6,8}.
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.4.2.2]
	 */
	uint8_t q_m;
	/** Number of Filler bits, n_filler = K – K’
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212 section 5.2.2]
	 */
	uint16_t n_filler;
	/** [0 - TB : 1 - CB] */
	uint8_t code_block_mode;
	union {
		/** Struct which stores Code Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_dec_ldpc_cb_params cb_params;
		/** Struct which stores Transport Block specific parameters */
		struct rte_bbdev_op_dec_ldpc_tb_params tb_params;
	};
	/** Optional k0 Rate matching starting position, overrides rv_index when non null
	 *  [3GPP TS38.212, section 5.4.2.1]
	 */
	uint16_t k0;
};

The LDPC decode parameters are set out in the table below.

Parameter

Description

input

input CB or TB data

hard_output

hard decisions buffer, decoded output

soft_output

soft LLR output buffer (optional)

harq_comb_input

HARQ combined input buffer (optional)

harq_comb_output

HARQ combined output buffer (optional)

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

rv_index

redundancy version index [0..3]

basegraph

Basegraph 1 or 2

z_c

Zc, LDPC lifting size

n_cb

Ncb, length of the circular buffer in bits.

q_m

Qm, modulation order {1,2,4,6,8} from pi/2-BPSK to 256QAM

n_filler

number of filler bits

iter_max

maximum number of iterations to perform in decode all CBs

iter_count

number of iterations performed in decoding all CBs

code_block_mode

code block or transport block mode

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

cb_params

code block specific parameters (code block mode only)

e

E, length of the rate matched output sequence in bits

tb_params

transport block specific parameters (transport block mode only)

c

number of CBs in the TB or partial TB

r

index of the first CB in the inbound mbuf data

c_ab

number of CBs that use Ea before switching to Eb

ea

Ea, length of the RM output sequence in bits, r < cab

eb

Eb, length of the RM output sequence in bits r >= cab

k0

Optional k0 Rate matching starting position override

The mbuf input input encoded CB data is mandatory for all BBDEV PMDs and is the Virtual Circular Buffer data stream with null padding. Each byte in the input circular buffer is the LLR value of each bit of the original CB.

The mbuf output hard_output is mandatory and is the decoded CBs size K (CRC24A/B is the last 24-bit in each decoded CB).

The mbuf output soft_output is optional and is an LLR rate matched output of size e (this is E as per 3GPP TS 38.212 section 6.2.5).

The mbuf input harq_combine_input is optional and is a buffer with the input to the HARQ combination function of the device. If the capability RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERNAL_HARQ_MEMORY_IN_ENABLE is set then the HARQ is stored in memory internal to the device and not visible to BBDEV.

The mbuf output harq_combine_output is optional and is a buffer for the output of the HARQ combination function of the device. If the capability RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_INTERNAL_HARQ_MEMORY_OUT_ENABLE is set then the HARQ is stored in memory internal to the device and not visible to BBDEV.

Note

More explicitly for a typical usage of HARQ retransmission in a VRAN application using a HW PMD, there will be 2 cases.

For 1st transmission, only the HARQ output is enabled:

  • the harq_combined_output.offset is provided to a given address. ie. typically an integer index * 32K, where the index is tracked by the application based on code block index for a given UE and HARQ process.

  • the related operation flag would notably include RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HQ_COMBINE_OUT_ENABLE and RTE_BBDEV_LDPC_HARQ_6BIT_COMPRESSION.

  • note that no explicit flush or reset of the memory is required.

For 2nd transmission, an input is also required to benefit from HARQ combination gain:

  • the changes mentioned above are the same (note that rvIndex may be adjusted).

  • the operation flag would additionally include the LDPC_HQ_COMBINE_IN_ENABLE flag.

  • the harq_combined_input.offset must be set to the address of the related code block (ie. same as the harq_combine_output index above for the same code block, HARQ process, UE).

  • the harq_combined_input.length must be set to the length which was provided back in the related harq_combined_output.length when it has processed and dequeued (previous HARQ iteration).

The output mbuf data structures are expected to be allocated by the application with enough room for the output data.

As with the LDPC encode, the decode interface works on both a code block (CB) and a transport block (TB) basis.

NOTE: All enqueued ops in one rte_bbdev_enqueue_dec_ops() call belong to one mode, either CB-mode or TB-mode.

The valid modes of operation are:

  • CB-mode: one CB (check CRC24B if required)

  • CB-mode: one CB making up one TB (check CRC24A if required)

  • TB-mode: one or more CB making up a partial TB (check CRC24B(s) if required)

  • TB-mode: one or more CB making up a complete TB (check CRC24B(s) if required)

The mbuf length is inclusive of CRC24A/B where present and is equal the code block size K.

The first CB Virtual Circular Buffer (VCB) index is given by r but the number of the remaining CB VCBs is calculated automatically by BBDEV and passed down to the driver.

The number of remaining CB VCBs should not be confused with c, the total number of CBs in the full TB (C as per 3GPP TS 38.212 section 5.2.2)

The length is total size of the CBs inclusive of any CRC24A and CRC24B in case they were appended by the application.

Figure Fig. 8.4 above showing the Turbo decoding of CBs using BBDEV interface in TB-mode is also valid for LDPC decode.

8.4.9. BBDEV FFT Operation

This operation allows to run a combination of DFT and/or IDFT and/or time-domain windowing. These can be used in a modular fashion (using bypass modes) or as a processing pipeline which can be used for FFT-based baseband signal processing.

In more details it allows :

  • to process the data first through an IDFT of adjustable size and padding;

  • to perform the windowing as a programmable cyclic shift offset of the data followed by a pointwise multiplication by a time domain window;

  • to process the related data through a DFT of adjustable size and de-padding for each such cyclic shift output.

A flexible number of Rx antennas are being processed in parallel with the same configuration. The API allows more generally for flexibility in what the PMD may support (capability flags) and flexibility to adjust some of the parameters of the processing.

The structure passed for each FFT operation is given below, with the operation flags forming a bitmask in the op_flags field.

NOTE: The actual operation flags that may be used with a specific bbdev PMD are dependent on the driver capabilities as reported via rte_bbdev_info_get(), and may be a subset of those below.

struct rte_bbdev_op_fft {
	/** Input data starting from first antenna. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data base_input;
	/** Output data starting from first antenna and first cyclic shift. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data base_output;
	/** Optional frequency window input data. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data dewindowing_input;
	/** Optional power measurement output data. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data power_meas_output;
	/** Flags from rte_bbdev_op_fft_flag_bitmasks. */
	uint32_t op_flags;
	/** Input sequence size in 32-bits points. */
	uint16_t input_sequence_size;
	/** Padding at the start of the sequence. */
	uint16_t input_leading_padding;
	/** Output sequence size in 32-bits points. */
	uint16_t output_sequence_size;
	/** Depadding at the start of the DFT output. */
	uint16_t output_leading_depadding;
	/** Window index being used for each cyclic shift output. */
	uint8_t window_index[RTE_BBDEV_MAX_CS_2];
	/** Bitmap of the cyclic shift output requested. */
	uint16_t cs_bitmap;
	/** Number of antennas as a log2 – 8 to 128. */
	uint8_t num_antennas_log2;
	/** iDFT size as a log2 - 32 to 2048. */
	uint8_t idft_log2;
	/** DFT size as a log2 - 8 to 2048. */
	uint8_t dft_log2;
	/** Adjustment of position of the cyclic shifts - -31 to 31. */
	int8_t cs_time_adjustment;
	/** iDFT shift down. */
	int8_t idft_shift;
	/** DFT shift down. */
	int8_t dft_shift;
	/** NCS reciprocal factor. */
	uint16_t ncs_reciprocal;
	/** Power measurement out shift down. */
	uint16_t power_shift;
	/** Adjust the FP6 exponent for INT<->FP16 conversion. */
	uint16_t fp16_exp_adjust;
	/** Frequency resampling : 0: Transparent Mode1: 4/3 Resample2: 2/3 Resample. */
	int8_t freq_resample_mode;
	/** Output depadded size prior to frequency resampling. */
	uint16_t output_depadded_size;
	/** Time error correction initial phase. */
	uint16_t cs_theta_0[RTE_BBDEV_MAX_CS];
	/** Time error correction phase increment. */
	uint32_t cs_theta_d[RTE_BBDEV_MAX_CS];
	/* Time offset per CS of time domain samples. */
	int8_t time_offset[RTE_BBDEV_MAX_CS];
};

Description of FFT capability flags

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_WINDOWING

Set to enable/support windowing in time domain

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_CS_ADJUSTMENT

Set to enable/support the cyclic shift time offset adjustment

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_DFT_BYPASS

Set to bypass the DFT and use directly the IDFT as an option

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_IDFT_BYPASS

Set to bypass the IDFT and use directly the DFT as an option

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_WINDOWING_BYPASS

Set to bypass the time domain windowing as an option

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_POWER_MEAS

Set to provide an optional power measurement of the DFT output

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_FP16_INPUT

Set if the input data shall use FP16 format instead of INT16

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_FP16_OUTPUT

Set if the output data shall use FP16 format instead of INT16

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_TIMING_OFFSET_PER_CS

Set if device supports adjusting time offset per CS

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_TIMING_ERROR

Set if device supports correcting for timing error

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_DEWINDOWING

Set if enabling the option FFT Dewindowing in Frequency domain

RTE_BBDEV_FFT_FREQ_RESAMPLING

Set if device supports the optional frequency resampling

The FFT parameters are set out in the table below.

Parameter

Description

base_input

input data

base_output

output data

dewindowing_input

optional frequency domain dewindowing input data

power_meas_output

optional output data with power measurement on DFT output

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

input_sequence_size

size of the input sequence in 32-bits points per antenna

input_leading_padding

number of points padded at the start of input data

output_sequence_size

size of the output sequence per antenna and cyclic shift

output_leading_depadding

number of points de-padded at the start of output data

window_index

optional windowing profile index used for each cyclic shift

cs_bitmap

bitmap of the cyclic shift output requested (LSB for index 0)

num_antennas_log2

number of antennas as a log2 (10 maps to 1024…)

idft_log2

IDFT size as a log2

dft_log2

DFT size as a log2

cs_time_adjustment

adjustment of time position of all the cyclic shift output

idft_shift

shift down of signal level post iDFT

dft_shift

shift down of signal level post DFT

ncs_reciprocal

inverse of max number of CS normalized to 15b (ie. 231 for 12)

power_shift

shift down of level of power measurement when enabled

fp16_exp_adjust

value added to FP16 exponent at conversion from INT16

freq_resample_mode

frequency ressampling mode (0:transparent, 1-2: resample)

output_depadded_size

output depadded size prior to frequency resampling

cs_theta_0

timing error correction initial phase

cs_theta_d

timing error correction phase increment

time_offset

time offset per CS of time domain samples

The mbuf input base_input is mandatory for all bbdev PMDs and is the incoming data for the processing. Its size may not fit into an actual mbuf, but the structure is used to pass iova address. The mbuf output output is mandatory and is output of the FFT processing chain. Each point is a complex number of 32bits : either as 2 INT16 or as 2 FP16 based when the option supported. The data layout is based on contiguous concatenation of output data first by cyclic shift then by antenna.

8.4.10. BBDEV MLD-TS Operation

This operation allows to run the Tree Search (TS) portion of a Maximum Likelihood processing (MLD).

This alternate equalization option accelerates the exploration of the best combination of transmitted symbols across layers minimizing the Euclidean distance between the received and reconstructed signal, then generates the LLRs to be used by the LDPC Decoder. The input is the results of the Q R decomposition: Q^Hy signal and R matrix.

The structure passed for each MLD-TS operation is given below, with the operation flags forming a bitmask in the op_flags field.

NOTE: The actual operation flags that may be used with a specific bbdev PMD are dependent on the driver capabilities as reported via rte_bbdev_info_get(), and may be a subset of those below.

struct rte_bbdev_op_mldts {
	/** Input data QHy from QR decomposition. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data qhy_input;
	/** Input data R from QR decomposition. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data r_input;
	/** Output data post MLD-TS. */
	struct rte_bbdev_op_data output;
	/** Flags from *rte_bbdev_op_MLDTS_flag_bitmasks*. */
	uint32_t op_flags;
	/** Number of RBs. */
	uint16_t num_rbs;
	/** Number of layers 2->4. */
	uint16_t num_layers;
	/** Modulation order (2->8 QPSK to 256QAM). */
	uint8_t q_m[RTE_BBDEV_MAX_MLD_LAYERS];
	/** Row repetition for the same R matrix - subcarriers. */
	uint8_t r_rep;
	/** Column repetition for the same R matrix - symbols. */
	uint8_t c_rep;
};

Description of MLD-TS capability flags

RTE_BBDEV_MLDTS_REP

Set if the option to use repeated data from R channel is supported

The MLD-TS parameters are set out in the table below.

Parameter

Description

qhy_input

input data qHy

r_input

input data R triangular matrix

output

output data (LLRs)

op_flags

bitmask of all active operation capabilities

num_rbs

number of Resource Blocks

num_layers

number of overlapping layers

q_m

array of modulation order for each layer

r_rep

optional row repetition for the R matrix (subcarriers)

c_rep

optional column repetition for the R matrix (symbols)

8.5. Sample code

The baseband device sample application gives an introduction on how to use the bbdev framework, by giving a sample code performing a loop-back operation with a baseband processor capable of transceiving data packets.

The following sample C-like pseudo-code shows the basic steps to encode several buffers using (sw_turbo) bbdev PMD.

/* EAL Init */
ret = rte_eal_init(argc, argv);
if (ret < 0)
    rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE, "Invalid EAL arguments\n");

/* Get number of available bbdev devices */
nb_bbdevs = rte_bbdev_count();
if (nb_bbdevs == 0)
    rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE, "No bbdevs detected!\n");

/* Create bbdev op pools */
bbdev_op_pool[RTE_BBDEV_OP_TURBO_ENC] =
        rte_bbdev_op_pool_create("bbdev_op_pool_enc",
        RTE_BBDEV_OP_TURBO_ENC, NB_MBUF, 128, rte_socket_id());

/* Get information for this device */
rte_bbdev_info_get(dev_id, &info);

/* Setup BBDEV device queues */
ret = rte_bbdev_setup_queues(dev_id, qs_nb, info.socket_id);
if (ret < 0)
    rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE,
            "ERROR(%d): BBDEV %u not configured properly\n",
            ret, dev_id);

/* setup device queues */
qconf.socket = info.socket_id;
qconf.queue_size = info.drv.queue_size_lim;
qconf.op_type = RTE_BBDEV_OP_TURBO_ENC;

for (q_id = 0; q_id < qs_nb; q_id++) {
    /* Configure all queues belonging to this bbdev device */
    ret = rte_bbdev_queue_configure(dev_id, q_id, &qconf);
    if (ret < 0)
        rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE,
                "ERROR(%d): BBDEV %u queue %u not configured properly\n",
                ret, dev_id, q_id);
}

/* Start bbdev device */
ret = rte_bbdev_start(dev_id);

/* Create the mbuf mempool for pkts */
mbuf_pool = rte_pktmbuf_pool_create("bbdev_mbuf_pool",
        NB_MBUF, MEMPOOL_CACHE_SIZE, 0,
        RTE_MBUF_DEFAULT_BUF_SIZE, rte_socket_id());
if (mbuf_pool == NULL)
    rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE,
            "Unable to create '%s' pool\n", pool_name);

while (!global_exit_flag) {

    /* Allocate burst of op structures in preparation for enqueue */
    if (rte_bbdev_enc_op_alloc_bulk(bbdev_op_pool[RTE_BBDEV_OP_TURBO_ENC],
        ops_burst, op_num) != 0)
        continue;

    /* Allocate input mbuf pkts */
    ret = rte_pktmbuf_alloc_bulk(mbuf_pool, input_pkts_burst, MAX_PKT_BURST);
    if (ret < 0)
        continue;

    /* Allocate output mbuf pkts */
    ret = rte_pktmbuf_alloc_bulk(mbuf_pool, output_pkts_burst, MAX_PKT_BURST);
    if (ret < 0)
        continue;

    for (j = 0; j < op_num; j++) {
        /* Append the size of the ethernet header */
        rte_pktmbuf_append(input_pkts_burst[j],
                sizeof(struct rte_ether_hdr));

        /* set op */

        ops_burst[j]->turbo_enc.input.offset =
            sizeof(struct rte_ether_hdr);

        ops_burst[j]->turbo_enc->input.length =
            rte_pktmbuf_pkt_len(bbdev_pkts[j]);

        ops_burst[j]->turbo_enc->input.data =
            input_pkts_burst[j];

        ops_burst[j]->turbo_enc->output.offset =
            sizeof(struct rte_ether_hdr);

        ops_burst[j]->turbo_enc->output.data =
                output_pkts_burst[j];
    }

    /* Enqueue packets on BBDEV device */
    op_num = rte_bbdev_enqueue_enc_ops(qconf->bbdev_id,
            qconf->bbdev_qs[q], ops_burst,
            MAX_PKT_BURST);

    /* Dequeue packets from BBDEV device*/
    op_num = rte_bbdev_dequeue_enc_ops(qconf->bbdev_id,
            qconf->bbdev_qs[q], ops_burst,
            MAX_PKT_BURST);
}

8.5.1. BBDEV Device API

The bbdev Library API is described in the DPDK API Reference document.