PCI/PCIe card with DMA capability for device driver training

Question

I trying to learn DMA for device drivers with PCI/PCIe devices, and my platform is linux/bsd. I have found quite a few simple PCI boards for training (such as simple digital I/O boards), but none have hardware complex enough to handle DMA. Is anyone on Stackoverflow aware of a PCI/PCIe card with some sort of microprocessor or mcirocontroller that I could program with open-source tools like gcc (eg PowerPC, 68HC11, Atmel, 8051, etc.)??

Of course the kicker is low cost...sub USD 300.00 if possible.

I DO NOT WANT an FPGA-based board, because that requires a Windows workstation (usually) for programming the FPGA, as well as all of the time required for creating and working with a PCI/PCIe IP core in the FPGA. Basically, I don't want to spend my time working on the FPGA; I want to work on the device driver! This may be my only option though...

Answer 1

If you don't want to use FPGA, then you have to find a board that has enough info for you to be able to communicate with the PCIe interface of it. Not that many boards come with HW interface document, but if you want or can do this without documentation, you can use one of these boards:

Alibaba 4 Channel MIDI GAME port 3D Same board on E-bay Alternative 2 on e-bay

You can also get a bit more advanced board like this one, but then you need to know how to communicate with their chipset. Alibaba 4CH PCIe HDMI Video Capture Card here

If you change your mind for the FPGA, I would really recommend the Altera PCIe board that comes with a reference design and the bit file already per-programmed on the board. It is much more expensive than those, but the biggest benefit is that you have full documentation of the PCIe interface:

Altera Cyclone IV GX Transceiver Starter Kit

Here is the info about their reference design: Altera PCIe reference design

Hope you find what you are looking for here.