Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] PTP: add support for Intel's TGPIO controller

From: Felipe Balbi <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2019 10:35:14 +0300

Hi,

Andrew Lunn <[email-masked]> writes:
> On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 10:20:33AM +0300, Felipe Balbi wrote:
>> TGPIO is a new IP which allows for time synchronization between systems
>> without any other means of synchronization such as PTP or NTP. The
>> driver is implemented as part of the PTP framework since its features
>> covered most of what this controller can do.
>
> Hi Felipe
>
> Given the name TGPIO, can it also be used for plain old boring GPIO?

not really, no. This is a misnomer, IMHO :-) We can only assert output
pulses at specified intervals or capture a timestamp of an external
signal.

> Does there need to be some sort of mux between GPIO and TGPIO? And an
> interface into the generic GPIO core?

no

> Also, is this always embedded into a SoC? Or could it actually be in a
> discrete NIC?

Technically, this could be done as a discrete, but it isn't. In any
case, why does that matter? From a linux-point of view, we have a device
driver either way.

-- 
balbi