|  | 23-Aug-2002 | 
|  |  | 
|  | The "ohci-hcd" driver is a USB Host Controller Driver (HCD) that is derived | 
|  | from the "usb-ohci" driver from the 2.4 kernel series.  The "usb-ohci" code | 
|  | was written primarily by Roman Weissgaerber <weissg@vienna.at> but with | 
|  | contributions from many others (read its copyright/licencing header). | 
|  |  | 
|  | It supports the "Open Host Controller Interface" (OHCI), which standardizes | 
|  | hardware register protocols used to talk to USB 1.1 host controllers.  As | 
|  | compared to the earlier "Universal Host Controller Interface" (UHCI) from | 
|  | Intel, it pushes more intelligence into the hardware.  USB 1.1 controllers | 
|  | from vendors other than Intel and VIA generally use OHCI. | 
|  |  | 
|  | Changes since the 2.4 kernel include | 
|  |  | 
|  | - improved robustness; bugfixes; and less overhead | 
|  | - supports the updated and simplified usbcore APIs | 
|  | - interrupt transfers can be larger, and can be queued | 
|  | - less code, by using the upper level "hcd" framework | 
|  | - supports some non-PCI implementations of OHCI | 
|  | - ... more | 
|  |  | 
|  | The "ohci-hcd" driver handles all USB 1.1 transfer types.  Transfers of all | 
|  | types can be queued.  That was also true in "usb-ohci", except for interrupt | 
|  | transfers.  Previously, using periods of one frame would risk data loss due | 
|  | to overhead in IRQ processing.  When interrupt transfers are queued, those | 
|  | risks can be minimized by making sure the hardware always has transfers to | 
|  | work on while the OS is getting around to the relevant IRQ processing. | 
|  |  | 
|  | - David Brownell | 
|  | <dbrownell@users.sourceforge.net> | 
|  |  |