6. Glossary

This glossary provides definitions for key terms and concepts used within DPDK. Understanding these terms will help in comprehending the functionality and architecture of DPDK.

BIOS (Basic Input/Output System): The firmware used to perform hardware initialization during the booting process and to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs.
Bifurcated Driver: A driver model that splits functionality between kernel and userspace, often used in high-performance networking.
Clang-LLVM: A compiler toolchain that includes the Clang C compiler and LLVM linker, used for building DPDK on Windows.
contigmem Module: A module in FreeBSD that provides physically contiguous memory allocation used by DPDK.
DMA (Direct Memory Access): A feature that allows hardware devices to access the main system memory directly, without involving the CPU.
EAL (Environment Abstraction Layer): The layer within DPDK that abstracts environmental specifics and provides a standard programming interface.
hugepages: Large memory pages used by the operating system to manage memory more efficiently, especially in high-performance applications like DPDK.
IOMMU (Input-Output Memory Management Unit): A hardware component that translates device-visible virtual addresses to physical addresses, providing memory protection and isolation.
MinGW-w64 Toolchain: A development environment for creating Windows applications, used as an option for compiling DPDK on Windows.
NIC (Network Interface Card): A hardware component that connects a computer to a network.
nic_uio Module: A UIO driver for network devices in FreeBSD, used by DPDK.
NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access): A computer memory design used in multiprocessing where the memory access time depends on the memory location relative to the processor.
PMD (POLL Mode Driver): A type of driver in DPDK that continuously polls for events rather than relying on interrupts, often used for high-performance networking.
SoC (System on a Chip): An integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip.
UIO (Userspace I/O): A Linux kernel module that enables user-space applications to access hardware devices directly.
VFIO (Virtual Function I/O): A kernel driver that allows a virtual machine to access physical devices directly, used in DPDK for device assignment.
VFIO Platform: A framework in Linux that allows exposing direct device access to userspace, in a secure, IOMMU-protected way.