
Basic peripherals 173
DMA implementations
Intel 8237
This device is used in the IBM PC and is therefore probably
the most used DMA controller in current use. Like most peripher-
als today, it has moved from being a separate entity to be part of
the PC chip set that has replaced the 100 or so devices in the
original design with a single chip.
It can support four main transfer modes including single
and block transfers, the demand mode and a special cascade mode
where additional 8237 DMA controllers can be cascaded to ex-
pand the four channels that a single device can support. It can
transfer data between a peripheral and memory and by combining
two channels ...