Document-specific Conventions
Requirement Enumeration
Within the body of this document requirements are clearly defined by separate
paragraphs beginning with a bold text sequence number. A list of all these are
available as a separate document. These requirements may point to other standards
documents, or figures or tables which conveniently show the requirement. The
referenced material becomes part of the requirements in this document. Users of this
document must comply with these requirements to build a standard platform. Other
material in this document is supportive description of these requirements, architecture
notes, or implementation notes. Architecture or implementation notes are flagged with
a descriptive phrase—for example, “Hardware Implementation Note”—
and followed by indented paragraphs. The descriptive material and notes provide no
additional requirements and may be used for their information content.
Big-Endian Numbering
Big-Endian numbering of bytes and bits is used in this document, unless
indicated otherwise. Numbering of bits starts at 0 for the most significant bit and
continues to the least significant bit, unless indicated otherwise. All data structures
used for communicating between the OS and the platform (for example, RTAS and hypervisor
calls) will be in Big-Endian format, unless otherwise designated.
Hypertext Links
This document makes use of hypertext links. Cross references, Table of Contents
entries, List of Tables entries, and List of Figures entries are all clickable hypertext
links, to make navigation of the document easier.
Specific Terms
In this document:
The term “Processor Architecture” (PA) is used to mean compliance with
the requirements specified in .
The term “processor” is used as a general term to mean “processor,
” or “processor core,” or “thread of a multi-threaded processor
design.” In any case where it makes a difference, the specific terminology for that
case is used.
The term “real” used in relationship with addresses is a generic term
that means “processor real address” when the platform is running in SMP (non-LPAR)
mode and partition “logical real address” when the platform is running in LPAR
mode.
The term “PCI” is used as a general term to describe the most recent
versions of all forms of PCI standards. In cases where there are significant differences
between individual PCI standards, the following terminology is used to differentiate between
the PCI standards: conventional PCI, PCI-X, and PCI Express.
Typographical Conventions
Typographical conventions used in this document are described in
.
Typographical Conventions
Text Element
Description of Use
Rn-m-x.
A requirement number. The number “n” indicates a requirement
sequence number and is changed only when it is necessary change the sequence numbers
of one or more requirements on an update. The number “m” is the section
that the requirement appears in, and the number “x” is the number of the
requirement within that section. The sequence numbers are automatically generated and
are restarted at the beginning of each new section. Sequence numbers for existing
requirements will not change unless it becomes necessary to insert a requirement between
other requirements or to add a section that renumbers other sections (at which point,
the number “n” will be incremented for the next publication of the document).
Italics
Used for emphasis such as the first time a new term is used.
Indicates a book title. Indicates PA instruction mnemonics.
Indicates RTAS function, field names, and parameter names
Courier Bold
Indicates OF properties, methods, configuration variables, node names
and encode functions (for example, encode-int and
encode-string ). In addition, OF properties are enclosed in quotes.
Indicates NVRAM partition names
“Courier” (not bold, enclosed in quotes)
Indicates a character string value.
0xnnnn
Prefix to denote hexadecimal numbers.
0bnnnn
Prefix to denote binary numbers.
nnnnn
Numbers without a prefix are decimal numbers.
0xF... FFF100
This hexadecimal notation represents a replication of the hexadecimal
character to the right of the ellipsis to fill out the field width. For example, the
address 0xF... FFF100 would be 0xFFFFF100 on a processor with a 32-bit address bus or
0xFFFFFFFFFFFFF100 on a processor with a 64-bit address bus.
0:9
Ranges of bits are specified by two numbers separated by a colon. The
range includes the first number, all numbers in between, and the last number.
0xm-0xn
A range of addresses or values within the document is always inclusive,
from m up to and including n.
<token>
This notation means the character or character string named within the
less than and greater than symbols is used in the place of the symbols and name. For
instance, the property name “ibm,sensor- <token>
” indicates the set of properties
“ibm,sensor-9000”,
“ibm,sensor-9001” , . . .
Reserved For Compatibility
This notation is a placeholder used to reserve numbering (for example,
chapter, section and requirement numbers) so that subsequent numbering remains consistent
with document changes.
NULL vs. null
NULL designates an ASCII NULL string (0x00). The term “null”
indicates the empty set.