kernel-ark/Documentation/mic/mic_overview.txt

An Intel MIC X100 device is a PCIe form factor add-in coprocessor
card based on the Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture
that runs a Linux OS. It is a PCIe endpoint in a platform and therefore
implements the three required standard address spaces i.e. configuration,
memory and I/O. The host OS loads a device driver as is typical for
PCIe devices. The card itself runs a bootstrap after reset that
transfers control to the card OS downloaded from the host driver. The
host driver supports OSPM suspend and resume operations. It shuts down
the card during suspend and reboots the card OS during resume.
The card OS as shipped by Intel is a Linux kernel with modifications
for the X100 devices.

Since it is a PCIe card, it does not have the ability to host hardware
devices for networking, storage and console. We provide these devices
on X100 coprocessors thus enabling a self-bootable equivalent environment
for applications. A key benefit of our solution is that it leverages
the standard virtio framework for network, disk and console devices,
though in our case the virtio framework is used across a PCIe bus.

Here is a block diagram of the various components described above. The
virtio backends are situated on the host rather than the card given better
single threaded performance for the host compared to MIC, the ability of
the host to initiate DMA's to/from the card using the MIC DMA engine and
the fact that the virtio block storage backend can only be on the host.

                              |
       +----------+           |             +----------+
       | Card OS  |           |             | Host OS  |
       +----------+           |             +----------+
                              |
+-------+ +--------+ +------+ | +---------+  +--------+ +--------+
| Virtio| |Virtio  | |Virtio| | |Virtio   |  |Virtio  | |Virtio  |
| Net   | |Console | |Block | | |Net      |  |Console | |Block   |
| Driver| |Driver  | |Driver| | |backend  |  |backend | |backend |
+-------+ +--------+ +------+ | +---------+  +--------+ +--------+
    |         |         |     |      |            |         |
    |         |         |     |User  |            |         |
    |         |         |     |------|------------|---------|-------
    +-------------------+     |Kernel +--------------------------+
              |               |       | Virtio over PCIe IOCTLs  |
              |               |       +--------------------------+
      +--------------+        |                   |
      |Intel MIC     |        |            +---------------+
      |Card Driver   |        |            |Intel MIC      |
      +--------------+        |            |Host Driver    |
              |               |            +---------------+
              |               |                   |
     +-------------------------------------------------------------+
     |                                                             |
     |                    PCIe Bus                                 |
     +-------------------------------------------------------------+