NVIDIA Mellanox MCX613436A-VDAI SmartNIC Firmware 20.32.1010

Firmware which is added at the time of manufacturing, is used to run user programs on the device and can be thought of as the software that allows hardware to run. Embedded firmware is used to control the functions of various hardware devices and systems, much like a computer’s operating system (OS) controls the function of software applications. Firmware may be written into read-only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) or flash memory. 

Important Notes:
- Security Hardening Enhancements: This release contains important reliability improvements and security hardening enhancements. Mellanox recommends upgrading your devices firmware to this release to improve the devices’ firmware security and reliability.
- When upgrading or changing the configuration on multi-host adapter cards, for the changes to take effect, PCIe restart must be simultaneously sent from both hosts (servers).
- SR-IOV - Virtual Functions (VF) per Port - The maximum Virtual Functions (VF) per port is 127.
- It is recommended to enable the “above 4G decoding” BIOS setting for features that require large amount of PCIe resources. Such features are: SR-IOV with numerous VFs, PCIe Emulated Switch, and Large BAR Requests.

Changes and New Features:

 - Implemented a new NC-SI c commands.

Bug Fixes:

 
- Fixed an issue that resulted in firmware getting stuck and causing unexpected behavior when connecting an optical transceiver that support RXLOS, and the remote side port was down.
- Fixed an issue that caused the link status to be reported incorrectly and consequently caused the link to go down due to the wrong definition of the RX_LOS polarity in the INI.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the system from creating more than 128K QPs.
- Modified the Effective BER calculation method. Due to this, the value of the Effective BER will be slightly higher, however the link quality remains the same as prior to this change. Note: There is no change in the Symbol BER, it is the same as prior to this change.
- Removed a wrong indication of the PCIe link down in the AER registers on PCIe switch upstream port.
- Limited the external loopback speed according to the used module's capabilities.
- Fixed an issue that resulted in wrong RNR timeout when trying to set it during the rts2rts_qp transition.
- Fixed an issue that cause the flash frequency on boot to be lower than expected (under 50Mhz) by enabling the firmware to increase it on boot2 to normal frequency. Note: On boards that use Winbond flash, the firmware is blocked if using a firmware that does not include this fix. 
- Added support for DSFP AOC (CMIS) v4 when error code is not reported by the module.
- Fixed a race between DC QP flush and DC packets that led to stuck slices in the hardware. To avoid such situation, firmware keeps the TCU drop set until QP flush is done.

This firmware version includes the following PCIe changes:

- Fixed the ACS Port Number field in DSPs and ACS Egress Control Vector field in DSPs
- Added support for VSC on USP of PCIe Switch
- Fixed the mapping of Legacy Interrupts in the PCIe Switch
- Fixed MRRS & MPS configurations in DSPs

About Network Adapter Drivers:

When connected, the operating system usually installs a generic driver that helps the computer to recognize the newly attached device.

However, proper software must be applied if you want to make use of all features that the network adapter has available. This task also allows computers to properly recognize all device characteristics such as manufacturer, chipset, technology, and others.

Updating the adapter's drivers and utilities version might improve overall performance and stability, increase transfer speeds, fix different compatibility problems and several network-related errors, as well as bring various other changes.

To install this release, simply get the package, extract it if necessary, run the setup, and follow the instructions displayed on-screen. When done, don't forget to perform a system restart and reconnect the network adapter to make sure that all changes take effect properly.

Without further ado, if you intend to apply this version, click the download button and install the package. Moreover, check with our website as often as possible so that you don't miss a single new release.