public inbox for linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org 
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: thierry.reding@gmail•com (Thierry Reding)
To: linux-arm-kernel@lists•infradead.org
Subject: [PATCHv7 1/4] pwm: Add Freescale FTM PWM driver support
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2013 14:19:53 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20131217131951.GA2329@ulmo.nvidia.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20131217125832.GU4360@n2100.arm.linux.org.uk>

On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 12:58:32PM +0000, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 01:24:33PM +0100, Thierry Reding wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 11:51:36AM +0000, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> > > Same comments here - what memory operations is the wmb() trying to
> > > serialise?  Does this PWM driver somehow end up doing DMA?
> > 
> > Not that I can see. But if my understanding is correct, not using the
> > barriers would allow the compiler and CPU to reorder accesses, and by
> > that cause the register accesses to potentially happen in the wrong
> > order.
> 
> The compiler won't reorder them, but the CPU may if it meets certain
> criteria.  The architecture guarantees that accesses to device memory
> within a (minimum of) 1KB block will be ordered.
> 
> The ARM ARM is slightly ambiguous in how this is applied - in one
> place it says that "Accesses must arrive at any particular memory-mapped
> peripheral or block of memory in program order" and another part it
> says "The size of a memory mapped peripheral, or a block of memory,
> is IMPLEMENTATION DEFINED, but is not smaller than 1KByte.  Note
> This implies that the maximum memory-mapped peripheral size for which
> the architecture guarantees order for all implementations is 1KB."  See
> page A3-148.

None of the ARM ARM versions that I have seem to have page A3-148. Which
version should I be looking at? Not that I'm in any way doubting what
you're saying, I'd just like to make sure to have the correct reference
to look at in the future.

> What this means (to me at least) is that on any SoC, the architecture
> guarantees that accesses _within_ a 1KB device memory block will always
> be ordered, but two accesses outside of a 1KB block _to the same device_
> is implementation defined whether it is ordered or not.

This means at least every ARM SoC would behave that way. Since this
driver doesn't have an explicit dependency on ARM I assume it could
eventually be used on a different architecture. Even more so since
there's Freescale in the name.

> The interesting point here though is that the "note" contradicts the
> first definition if you have (eg) AMBA Primecell peripherals which are
> generally 4KB in size, since if the architecture only guarantees 1KB,
> then accesses _may_ _not_ arrive at one primecell in program order.
> Hence, the note is a direct contradiction of the first definition.

Interesting indeed. Perhaps implementation defined in this case means
that an implementation would have to adjust the size of a memory mapped
peripheral or block of memory accordingly, depending on the largest
block within the SoC.

I suppose, though, that if the architecture doesn't give any guarantees
about it, we can't safely assume that the implementation will.

Thierry
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/attachments/20131217/5b351e0f/attachment.sig>

  reply	other threads:[~2013-12-17 13:19 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 19+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2013-12-13  8:57 [PATCHv7 0/4] Add Freescale FTM PWM driver Xiubo Li
2013-12-13  8:57 ` [PATCHv7 1/4] pwm: Add Freescale FTM PWM driver support Xiubo Li
2013-12-17 11:10   ` Thierry Reding
2013-12-17 11:51     ` Russell King - ARM Linux
2013-12-17 12:00       ` Tomasz Figa
2013-12-17 12:45         ` Thierry Reding
2013-12-17 12:54           ` Tomasz Figa
2013-12-17 13:04             ` Russell King - ARM Linux
2013-12-17 13:08               ` Tomasz Figa
2013-12-17 13:22               ` Thierry Reding
2013-12-18  9:43               ` Li.Xiubo at freescale.com
2013-12-18  6:28           ` Li.Xiubo at freescale.com
2013-12-17 12:24       ` Thierry Reding
2013-12-17 12:58         ` Russell King - ARM Linux
2013-12-17 13:19           ` Thierry Reding [this message]
2013-12-18  3:34     ` Li.Xiubo at freescale.com
2013-12-13  8:57 ` [PATCHv7 2/4] ARM: dts: Add Freescale FTM PWM node for VF610 Xiubo Li
2013-12-13  8:57 ` [PATCHv7 3/4] ARM: dts: Enables FTM PWM device for Vybrid VF610 TOWER board Xiubo Li
2013-12-13  8:57 ` [PATCHv7 4/4] Documentation: Add device tree bindings for Freescale FTM PWM Xiubo Li

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20131217131951.GA2329@ulmo.nvidia.com \
    --to=thierry.reding@gmail$(echo .)com \
    --cc=linux-arm-kernel@lists$(echo .)infradead.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox