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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=======
+spu_run
+=======
+
+
+Name
+====
+ spu_run - execute an spu context
+
+
+Synopsis
+========
+
+ ::
+
+ #include <sys/spu.h>
+
+ int spu_run(int fd, unsigned int *npc, unsigned int *event);
+
+Description
+===========
+ The spu_run system call is used on PowerPC machines that implement the
+ Cell Broadband Engine Architecture in order to access Synergistic Pro-
+ cessor Units (SPUs). It uses the fd that was returned from spu_cre-
+ ate(2) to address a specific SPU context. When the context gets sched-
+ uled to a physical SPU, it starts execution at the instruction pointer
+ passed in npc.
+
+ Execution of SPU code happens synchronously, meaning that spu_run does
+ not return while the SPU is still running. If there is a need to exe-
+ cute SPU code in parallel with other code on either the main CPU or
+ other SPUs, you need to create a new thread of execution first, e.g.
+ using the pthread_create(3) call.
+
+ When spu_run returns, the current value of the SPU instruction pointer
+ is written back to npc, so you can call spu_run again without updating
+ the pointers.
+
+ event can be a NULL pointer or point to an extended status code that
+ gets filled when spu_run returns. It can be one of the following con-
+ stants:
+
+ SPE_EVENT_DMA_ALIGNMENT
+ A DMA alignment error
+
+ SPE_EVENT_SPE_DATA_SEGMENT
+ A DMA segmentation error
+
+ SPE_EVENT_SPE_DATA_STORAGE
+ A DMA storage error
+
+ If NULL is passed as the event argument, these errors will result in a
+ signal delivered to the calling process.
+
+Return Value
+============
+ spu_run returns the value of the spu_status register or -1 to indicate
+ an error and set errno to one of the error codes listed below. The
+ spu_status register value contains a bit mask of status codes and
+ optionally a 14 bit code returned from the stop-and-signal instruction
+ on the SPU. The bit masks for the status codes are:
+
+ 0x02
+ SPU was stopped by stop-and-signal.
+
+ 0x04
+ SPU was stopped by halt.
+
+ 0x08
+ SPU is waiting for a channel.
+
+ 0x10
+ SPU is in single-step mode.
+
+ 0x20
+ SPU has tried to execute an invalid instruction.
+
+ 0x40
+ SPU has tried to access an invalid channel.
+
+ 0x3fff0000
+ The bits masked with this value contain the code returned from
+ stop-and-signal.
+
+ There are always one or more of the lower eight bits set or an error
+ code is returned from spu_run.
+
+Errors
+======
+ EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK
+ fd is in non-blocking mode and spu_run would block.
+
+ EBADF fd is not a valid file descriptor.
+
+ EFAULT npc is not a valid pointer or status is neither NULL nor a valid
+ pointer.
+
+ EINTR A signal occurred while spu_run was in progress. The npc value
+ has been updated to the new program counter value if necessary.
+
+ EINVAL fd is not a file descriptor returned from spu_create(2).
+
+ ENOMEM Insufficient memory was available to handle a page fault result-
+ ing from an MFC direct memory access.
+
+ ENOSYS the functionality is not provided by the current system, because
+ either the hardware does not provide SPUs or the spufs module is
+ not loaded.
+
+
+Notes
+=====
+ spu_run is meant to be used from libraries that implement a more
+ abstract interface to SPUs, not to be used from regular applications.
+ See http://www.bsc.es/projects/deepcomputing/linuxoncell/ for the rec-
+ ommended libraries.
+
+
+Conforming to
+=============
+ This call is Linux specific and only implemented by the ppc64 architec-
+ ture. Programs using this system call are not portable.
+
+
+Bugs
+====
+ The code does not yet fully implement all features lined out here.
+
+
+Author
+======
+ Arnd Bergmann <arndb@de.ibm.com>
+
+See Also
+========
+ capabilities(7), close(2), spu_create(2), spufs(7)