NVIDIA MCX753106AS-HEA-N SmartNIC Firmware 28.37.1014

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.

The ConnectX-7 smart host channel adapter (HCA) provides up to four ports of connectivity and 400Gb/s of throughput, hardware-accelerated networking, storage, security, and manageability services at data center scale for cloud, telecommunications, AI, and enterprise workloads.

ConnectX-7 empowers agile and high-performance networking solutions with features such as Accelerated Switching and Packet Processing (ASAP2), advanced RoCE, GPUDirect Storage, and in-line hardware acceleration for Transport Layer Security (TLS), IP Security (IPsec), and MAC Security (MACsec) encryption and decryption. ConnectX-7 enables organizations to meet their current and future networking needs in both high-bandwidth and high-density environments.

The ConnectX-7 smart host channel adapter (HCA), featuring the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand architecture, provides the highest networking performance available to take on the world’s most challenging workloads. ConnectX-7 provides ultra-low latency, 400Gb/s throughput, and innovative NVIDIA In-Network Computing acceleration engines to provide additional acceleration to deliver the scalability and feature-rich technology needed for supercomputers, artificial intelligence, and hyperscale cloud data centers.

Changes and New Features:

- Added mergeable buffer support (VIRTIO_NET_F_MRG_RXBUF in virtio spec) for VDPA kernel mode to improve performance in case of large MTU such as 9K. The feature is disabled by default and must be manually enabled while creating or modifying the virtio device. Note: For best performance, it is NOT recommended to enable the feature if the VDPA MTU is set to the default value (1500).
- This new capability enables the VM to track and limit its Vport's activity. This is done using the new q_counters counter which enables aggregation of other Vport's from PF GVMI.
- Added a flow rule that enables offloading of multicast traffic by broadcasting it to multi-Flow-Table in FDB.
- Selective repeat improves network utilization in case of a lossy fabric. This features is enabled by default.
- Added support for dynamic MSIX modification on a VF NVME device emulation. If a PF NVME device emulation is created with dynamic_vf_msix_control = 1, then the dynamic_vf_msix_reset can set the PF device emulation's VF MSIX number to 0. The num_msix is used in the modified VF device emulation to modify the MSIX number of the VF device emulation.
- Enabled IB CC per Service Level (SL) for RC/UC on the HCA side. Now different SLs can be configured to be CC on/off according to the bitmask decided by the software.
- Optimizes the ATC configuration dynamically based on the returned pages of the ATS translation requests that have been made.
- Enables a smooth and statically switch between PCC algorithms. In addition, the user can now switch between PCC algorithms while running traffic.
- Added support for 32 actions in the header modify pattern using bulk allocation.
- The software can explicitly set the SL of an RTT response packet, instead of it being taken from the RTT request packet's SL. The RTT response packet SL may be set/queried via the CONGESTION_CONTROL_HCA_NP_PARAMETER MAD.

Bug Fixes:

- Removed the option to clear "Tx disable cap" for all non-baseT SFP modules.
- Added a split mask verification process to check whether or not a module is split in HCA. 
- Fixed an issue that resulted in firmware crash when setting large payload length values (more than ~1500) in NC-SI command's header.
- Fixed an issue that resulted in the interface type being shown as "unsupported" in CMIS modules.
- Updated the NEGOTIATE_ALGORITHMS response according to the SPDM specification.
- Added the option to clear the DPC registers after warm reboot.
- Fixed the configuration of the TS1s sent by the DownStream port (DSP) when moving to EQLZ.ph2.
- Changed the initial Tx preset configuration for the DownStream port (DSP).
- PLDM firmware update process fails in case 1304 bytes chunk size is chosen.
- Fixed an issues that occurred during secure firmware update when decrypting and authenticating each chunk of data using its authentication tag. The issue appeared when the main code chunk was split between the user chunks and any GCM operation (e.g., flash read with decryption). This GCM operation broke the GCM context for main chunk authentication and therefore failed. 
- CNP received, handled, and ignored counters in the hardware counters cannot work after moving to Programmable Congestion Control mode.
- Fixed a rare issue that prevented the hardware from handling an error flow that occurred when accessing the DPA cluster L2 cache from the firmware processor. In this case the firmware processor hardware requested a VA=>PA translation from the internal mmio, and the address translation was broken by the mmio on the 4K page boundary.
- When connecting a ConnectX-7 adapter card to a ConnectX-5 or an NVIDIA Spectrum switch and trying to raise 10G/40G over 100G optics cable is not supported.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the hardware from consuming Port-VL and credits, which consequently blocked traffic from being transmitted due to a race condition between the firmware and the hardware when accessing the chip memory (CR space).

About Network Adapter Firmware:

When connected, the operating system usually installs a generic firmware 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 firmware 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.