Live error recovery

• US 9,262,270 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2013
• Issued: 02/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Jayaprakash Bharadwaj, Prahladachar, Brown, Alexander, Das Sharma, Debendra, Thaliyil, Junaid
• Primary Examiner(s): Blair, April Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THIEN DANG
• Application Number:
  US13/892,894
• Publication Number:
  US 20140189427A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,009 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0736 in functional embedded systems, i.e. in a data processing system designed as a combination of hardware and software dedicated to performing a certain function testing or monitoring of automated control systems G05B23/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0745 in an input/output transactions management context input/output processing in general G06F13/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1415 at system level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1443 Transmit or communication errors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A packet is identified at a port of a serial data link, and it is determined that the packet is associated with an error. Entry into an error recovery mode is initiated based on the determination that the packet is associated with the error. Entry into the error recovery mode can cause the serial data link to be forced down. In one aspect, forcing the data link down causes all subsequent inbound packets to be dropped and all pending outbound requests and completions to be aborted during the error recovery mode.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

error logic, implemented at least in part in hardware circuitry, to;

identify a packet at a port of a serial data link;

receive an error code corresponding to the packet;

determine, from the error code, that the packet is associated with an error of a particular severity level, wherein errors of the particular severity level are to be handled using an error recovery mode;

determine that the severity level of the error is to be changed from the particular severity level to a lower severity level, wherein errors of the lower severity level are to be corrected in lieu of entry into the error recovery mode; and

initiate entry into the error recovery mode for another error of the particular severity level, wherein entry into the error recovery mode is to cause the corresponding serial data link to be forced down.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein forcing the data link down causes all subsequent inbound packets to be dropped.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein forcing the data link down further causes all pending outbound requests and completions to be aborted.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the error logic is further to generate and send a master abort completion for one of the aborted completions.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the error logic is further to drop a packet corresponding to the other error.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the error is at least one of a group comprising:

a transaction layer packet error, a flow control protocol error, and a data link layer protocol error.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the error logic is further to determine that the error is one of a set of errors that is to trigger the error recovery mode.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein determining that the error is included in the set of errors comprises comparing the error code to an error bit mask.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein determining that the severity level of the error is to be changed from the particular severity level to a lower severity level is based on a comparison of the error code with an error bit mask corresponding to the error recovery mode.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein entering the error recovery mode includes entering a disabled state.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the particular severity level comprises an uncorrectable severity and the lower severity level comprises a correctable severity.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the error logic is further to cause the error to be corrected.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the error logic is further to identify that all transactions on the data link have been dropped and identify that all error registers for the data link have been cleared.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the error logic is to determine that the transactions have been dropped based on a quiesced control bit value of a register.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the error logic is to clear an error recovery bit of a status control register corresponding to the forced down data link based on identifying that all transactions on the forced down data link have been dropped and that all error registers for the forced down data link have been cleared.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the error logic is further to initiate retraining of the forced down link based on the clearing of the error recovery bit, wherein the error recovery bit indicates whether error recovery mode is active.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein entry into the error recovery mode is to be initiated on a same clock cycle as detection of a corresponding error.

18. An apparatus comprising:

logic, implemented at least in part in hardware circuitry, to;

receive a packet on a serial data link;

identify an error code associated with the packet;

determine, from the error code, that the packet is associated with an error of a particular severity level, wherein errors of the particular severity level are to be handled using an error recovery mode;

determine that the severity level of the error is to be changed from the particular severity level to a lower severity level, wherein errors of the lower severity level are to be corrected in lieu of entry into the error recovery mode; and

initiate entry into the error recovery mode for another error of the particular severity level, wherein entry into the error recovery mode is to cause the logic to drop an inbound packet and abort an outbound request following detection of the other error.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the logic is to abort all pending outbound requests and completions during error recovery mode.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the logic is to drop all inbound packets during error recovery mode.

21. An apparatus comprising:

error logic, implemented at least in part in hardware circuitry and comprising transaction layer logic, data link layer logic, and physical layer logic, wherein the error logic is to;

detect a particular error associated with a particular packet;

determine, based on a first register value, that the particular error is to be designated as an uncorrectable error;

determine, based on a second register value, that the particular error is to trigger an error recovery mode, wherein the error recovery mode is to cause inbound and outbound packets subsequent to the particular error to be dropped;

based on determining that the particular error is to trigger the error recovery mode, determine from a third register value whether the error recovery mode is enabled; and

service the particular error based at least in part on the first, second, and third register values.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the error logic is further to initiate the error recovery mode based on a determination that the third register value indicates that the error recovery mode is enabled, and initiating the error recovery mode includes asserting an error recovery status control bit of a register.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the error logic is further to:

identify that the error recovery status control bit is cleared; and

initiate reactivation of the data link based on the clearing of the error recovery status control bit.

24. A method comprising:

identifying a packet at a port of a serial data link;

receiving an error code corresponding to the packet;

determining, from the error code, that the packet is associated with an error of a particular severity level, wherein errors of the particular severity level are to be handled using an error recovery mode;

determining that the severity level of the error is to be changed from the particular severity level to a lower severity level, wherein errors of the lower severity level are to be corrected in lieu of entry into the error recovery mode; and

initiating entry into the error recovery mode for another error of the particular severity level, wherein entry into the error recovery mode is to cause the corresponding serial data link to be forced down.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising forcing down the serial data link corresponding to the other error, wherein forcing down the serial data link corresponding to the other error includes:

entering a recovery state; and

transitioning from the recovery state to a disabled state.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein forcing down the other data link includes sending a sequence of training sequences, and the training sequences include a bit indicating an attempted entry into the disabled state.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the packet is an outbound packet to be sent to another device over the data link.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein the packet is an inbound packet received from another device over the data link.

29. A system comprising:

a first device;

a second device to be communicatively coupled to the first device over an interconnect, the second device comprising error logic executable to;

identify a packet at a port of a serial data link of the interconnect;

receive an error code corresponding to the packet;

determine, from the error code, that the packet is associated with an error of a particular severity level, wherein errors of the particular severity level are to be handled using an error recovery mode;

determine that the severity level of the error is to be changed from the particular severity level to a lower severity level, wherein errors of the lower severity level are to be corrected in lieu of entry into the error recovery mode; and

initiate an error recovery mode on the port for another error of the particular severity level, wherein the error recovery mode is to contain the error triggering the error recovery mode to the corresponding port.

30. The system of claim 29, further comprising an error handler.

31. The system of claim 29, wherein the interconnect comprises a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe)-compliant interconnect.

32. The system of claim 29, wherein the first device comprises a first microprocessor and the second device comprises a second microprocessor.