Introduction to DMA in Windows Driver Framework
[Applies to KMDF only]
On Windows 7 and earlier, Kernel-Mode Driver Framework (KMDF) supports only bus-master direct memory access (DMA) devices. Such devices contain their own DMA controllers.
On System on a Chip (SoC)–based platforms running Windows 8 and later, the framework also supports system-mode DMA, in which multiple devices share a single multichannel DMA controller.
The framework's DMA support consists of:
A set of framework DMA objects and methods that drivers use to convert I/O requests into DMA operations.
A set of driver-supplied event callback functions that configure the device's DMA behavior as different events occur.
The framework supports both single packet and scatter/gather DMA transfers. It also supports the use of common buffers.
On SoC-based platforms running Windows 8 and later, the framework supports single-packet system-mode DMA transfers. For more information, see Supporting System-Mode DMA.
The framework does not support system-mode DMA transfers on PC-based platforms.