Recently sent out on the Linux kernel mailing list was the initial patches for implementing the Smart Data Accelerator Interface (SDXI) as a vendor-neutral architecture for memory-to-memory data movement offload.

Building off an initial "request for comments" last year, the SDXI basic Linux enablement is taking shape and aims for compatibility with PCIe-hosted SDXI 1.0 implementations. SDXI is self-described as a "memory-to-memory Data Mover and acceleration interface" with the most recent version of the spec being v1.0a from October 2024.

With SDXI it's possible to have direct, user-mode access to hardware accelerators without CPU intervention and to also jive well in virtualized environments. It's been years in the making in being worked on by HPE, AMD, Microsoft, and other organizations.

This Linux SDXI driver now has all the basics covered for the v1.0(a) spec while future work is planned for exposing SDXI contexts to user-space via a character device, support for operation types, and greater configurability.

Those interested in SDXI can see [1]this Linux driver patch series posted by AMD engineer Nathan Lynch.



[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260410-sdxi-base-v1-0-1d184cb5c60a@amd.com/