Method and apparatus for hardware resource sharing in a direct memory access controller

A method of data transfer in a data processing system comprising:

• allocating, by a context manager of a direct memory access controller (DMAC) in response to allocation requests from one or more virtual channels of a plurality of virtual channels of the DMAC, a physical channel of one or more physical channels of the DMAC to a selected virtual channel of the plurality of virtual channels;
• and
• generating, by the selected virtual channel, a flow control signal;
• initiating, by a physical channel of one or more physical channels of the DMAC, responsive to the flow control signal, transfer of data from one or more source addresses in an external source device to one or more destination addresses in an external destination device, in accordance with a command descriptor for a DMA channel;
• routing, by the context manager, the flow control signal from the selected virtual channel to the allocated physical channel;
• and
• routing, by the context manager, a status signal from the allocated physical channel to the selected virtual channel.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium to store computer-readable code for fabrication of a direct memory access controller (DMAC) comprising:

• a plurality of virtual channels, a virtual channel of the plurality of virtual channels configured to generate a flow control signal for execution of a direct memory access (DMA) command;
• one or more physical channels, a physical channel of the one or more physical channels including read and write control logic to initiate, responsive to the flow control signal, transfer of data from a source address in an external source device to a destination address in an external destination device in accordance with the DMA command;
• and
• a context manager including:
• allocation logic configured to arbitrate between allocation requests from the plurality of virtual channels and allocate a physical channel of the one or more physical channels to a selected virtual channel of the plurality of virtual channels;
• and
• routing logic configured to route a flow control signal from the selected virtual channel to the allocated physical channel and to route a status signal from the allocated physical channel to the selected virtual channel.