• Home
  • Line#
  • Scopes#
  • Navigate#
  • Raw
  • Download
1Introduction:
2=============
3
4This documentation entry describes the Common Clock Framework [CCF]
5port from Linux kernel (v5.1.12) to U-Boot.
6
7This code is supposed to bring CCF to IMX based devices (imx6q, imx7
8imx8). Moreover, it also provides some common clock code, which would
9allow easy porting of CCF Linux code to other platforms.
10
11Design decisions:
12=================
13
14* U-Boot's driver model [DM] for clk differs from Linux CCF. The most
15  notably difference is the lack of support for hierarchical clocks and
16  "clock as a manager driver" (single clock DTS node acts as a starting
17  point for all other clocks).
18
19* The clk_get_rate() caches the previously read data if CLK_GET_RATE_NOCACHE
20  is not set (no need for recursive access).
21
22* On purpose the "manager" clk driver (clk-imx6q.c) is not using large
23  table to store pointers to clocks - e.g. clk[IMX6QDL_CLK_USDHC2_SEL] = ....
24  Instead we use udevice's linked list for the same class (UCLASS_CLK).
25
26  Rationale:
27  ----------
28    When porting the code as is from Linux, one would need ~1KiB of RAM to
29    store it. This is way too much if we do plan to use this driver in SPL.
30
31* The "central" structure of this patch series is struct udevice and its
32  uclass_priv field contains the struct clk pointer (to the originally created
33  one).
34
35* Up till now U-Boot's driver model (DM) CLK operates on udevice (main
36  access to clock is by udevice ops)
37  In the CCF the access to struct clk (embodying pointer to *dev) is
38  possible via dev_get_clk_ptr() (it is a wrapper on dev_get_uclass_priv()).
39
40* To keep things simple the struct udevice's uclass_priv pointer is used to
41  store back pointer to corresponding struct clk. However, it is possible to
42  modify clk-uclass.c file and add there struct uc_clk_priv, which would have
43  clock related members (like pointer to clk). As of this writing there is no
44  such need, so to avoid extra allocations (as it can be auto allocated by
45  setting .per_device_auto_alloc_size = sizeof(struct uc_clk_priv)) the
46  uclass_priv stores the pointer to struct clk.
47
48* It is advised to add common clock code (like already added rate and flags) to
49  the struct clk, which is a top level description of the clock.
50
51* U-Boot's driver model already provides the facility to automatically allocate
52  (via private_alloc_size) device private data (accessible via dev->priv).
53  It may look appealing to use this feature to allocate private structures for
54  CCF clk devices e.g. divider (struct clk_divider *divider) for IMX6Q clock.
55
56  The above feature had not been used for following reasons:
57  - The original CCF Linux kernel driver is the "manager" for clocks - it
58    decides when clock is instantiated (and when memory for it is allocated).
59
60  - Using it would change the original structure of the CCF code.
61
62  - To bind (via clk_register()) the clock device with U-Boot driver model we
63    first need udevice for it (the "chicken and egg problem").
64
65* I've added the clk_get_parent(), which reads parent's dev->uclass_priv to
66  provide parent's struct clk pointer. This seems the easiest way to get
67  child/parent relationship for struct clk in U-Boot's udevice based clocks.
68
69* Linux's CCF 'struct clk_core' corresponds to U-Boot's udevice in 'struct clk'.
70  Clock IP block agnostic flags from 'struct clk_core' (e.g. NOCACHE) have been
71  moved from this struct one level up to 'struct clk'.
72
73* For tests the new ./test/dm/clk_ccf.c and ./drivers/clk/clk_sandbox_ccf.c
74  files have been introduced. The latter setups the CCF clock structure for
75  sandbox by reusing, if possible, generic clock primitives - like divier
76  and mux. The former file provides code to tests this setup.
77
78  For sandbox new CONFIG_SANDBOX_CLK_CCF Kconfig define has been introduced.
79  All new primitives added for new architectures must have corresponding test
80  in the two aforementioned files.
81
82
83Testing (sandbox):
84==================
85
86make mrproper; make sandbox_defconfig; make -j4
87./u-boot -i -d arch/sandbox/dts/test.dtb
88=> ut dm clk
89
90or in a more "scriptable" way (with -v to print debug output):
91./u-boot --fdt arch/sandbox/dts/test.dtb --command "ut dm clk_ccf" -v
92
93To do:
94------
95
96* Use of OF_PLATDATA in the SPL setup for CCF - as it is now - the SPL grows
97  considerably and using CCF in boards with tiny resources (OCRAM) is
98  problematic.
99
100* On demand port other parts of CCF to U-Boot - as now only features _really_
101  needed by DM/DTS converted drivers are used.
102