Installation guide

PCI-SB StarFabric PCI Interface Card Installation Guide 2-11
PCI-SB Card in Detail
PCI-SB Card Operating Modes
The PCI-SB card has three operating modes to meet the needs of your PCI topol-
ogy:
• Root
• Leaf
• Gateway
Root Mode
Setting the card to Root mode means the PCI-SB card provides a Root bridge
between the physical PCI bus and the StarFabric switch fabric or remote StarFab-
ric-enabled devices, as shown in Figure 6.
FIGURE 6. Root Mode Bridge
This mode of operation is used in legacy PCI bridge applications where traffic is
address routed or routed based on a static address. The Root bridge is the upper-
From the
PCI bus
To the switch fabric or
remote StarFabric device
PCI-SB card
configured as
Root bridge
Primary PCI Bus
PICMG expansion
card or XP-SG
expansion chassis
Remote StarFabric
device with PCI-SB
card configured as
Leaf