Subject: Re: [PATCH V3] net: emac: emac gigabit ethernet controller driver

From: Timur Tabi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2016 14:06:39 -0500

Andrew Lunn wrote:

> There are two different things here. One is configuring the pin to be
> a GPIO. The second is using the GPIO as a GPIO. In this case,
> bit-banging the MDIO bus.
>
> The firmware could be doing the configuration, setting the pin as a
> GPIO. However, the firmware cannot be doing the MDIO bit-banging to
> make an MDIO bus available. Linux has to do that.
>
> Or it could be we have all completely misunderstood the hardware, and
> we are not doing bit-banging GPIO MDIO. There is a real MDIO
> controller there, we don't use these pins as GPIOs, etc....

Actually, I think there is a misunderstanding.

On the FSM9900 SOC (which uses device-tree), the two pins that connect 
to the external PHY are gpio pins.  However, the driver needs to 
reprogram the pinmux so that those pins are wired to the Emac 
controller.  That's what the the gpio code in this driver is doing: it's 
just configuring the pins so that they connect directly between the Emac 
and the external PHY.  After that, they are no longer GPIO pins, and you 
cannot use the "GPIO controlled MDIO bus".  There is no MDIO controller 
on the SOC.  The external PHY is controlled directly from the Emac and 
also from the internal PHY.  It is screwy, I know, but that's what Gilad 
was trying to explain.

On the QDF2432 (which uses ACPI), those two wires are now dedicated. 
There are not muxed GPIOs any more -- they are hard wired between Emac 
and the external PHY.

In both cases, you need to use Emac registers to communicate with the 
external PHY.  Stuff like link detect and link speed are configured by 
programming the Emac and/or the internal phy.

And the internal phy isn't really an internal phy.  It's an SGMII-like 
device that's connected to the Emac and handles various phy-related 
tasks.  It has its own register block, but you still have to program it 
in concert with the Emac.  You can't really treat it separately.

So I'm beginning to believe that Gilad's driver is actually correct 
as-is.  There are a few minor bug fixes, but in general it's correct.  I 
would like to post a V4 soon that has those minor fixes.

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