Writing Device Drivers

PCI Configuration Base Address Registers

The PCI configuration space consists of up to six 32-bit base address registers for each device. These registers provide both size and data type information. System firmware assigns base addresses in the PCI address domain to these registers.

Each addressable region can be either memory or I/O space. The value contained in bit 0 of the base address register identifies the type. A value of 0 in bit 0 indicates a memory space and a value of 1 indicates an I/O space. The following figure shows two base address registers: one for memory and the other for I/O types.

Figure A–4 Base Address Registers for Memory and I/O

Diagram shows how bit 0 in a base address indicates a memory or I/O space.