Re: [PATCH v5 07/13] pwm: add support for sl28cpld PWM controller

["Uwe Kleine-König" <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>]

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On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 07:45:10PM +0200, Michael Walle wrote:
> Hi Uwe,
> 
> Am 2020-07-15 18:36, schrieb Uwe Kleine-König:
> > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 11:09:28PM +0200, Michael Walle wrote:
> > > > My wishlist (just as it comes to my mind, so no guarantee of
> > > > completeness):
> > > >
> > > >  - can do 0% duty cycle for all supported period lengths
> > > >  - can do 100% duty cycle for all supported period lengths
> > > >  - supports both polarities
> > > >  - supports immediate change of configuration and after completion of
> > > >    the currently running period
> > > >  - atomic update (i.e. if you go from configuration A to configuration B
> > > >    the hardware guarantees to only emit periods of type A and then type
> > > >    B. (Depending on the item above, the last A period might be cut off.)
> > > 
> > > We actually discussed this, because the implementation would be
> > > easier. But
> > > if the change takes place immediately you might end up with a longer
> > > duty
> > > cycle. Assume the PWM runs at 80% duty cycle and starts with the
> > > on-period.
> > > If you now change that to 50% you might end up with one successive
> > > duty
> > > cycle of "130%". Eg. the 80% of the old and right after that you
> > > switch to
> > > the new 50% and then you'd have a high output which corresponds to a
> > > 130%
> > > cycle. I don't know if that is acceptable for all applications.
> > 
> > I thought this is a "change takes place immediately" implementation?! So
> > these problems are actually real here. (And this not happening is
> > exactly
> > my wish here. Is there a mis-understanding?)
> 
> I wasn't talking about the sl28cpld btw. What is the difference between
> your proposed "change take place immediately" and "after the cycle".
> I understand how the after the cycle should work. But how would the
> immediate change work in your ideal PWM?

If the PWM is running at 1/3 duty cycle and reconfigured for 2/3, then
the two scenarios are (the * marks the moment where pwm_apply_state() is
called, ^ marks the start of a period):

immediately:

  __       __    _____    _____
 /  \_____/  \__/     \__/
 ^        ^     ^        ^
                *

after the cycle
  __       __       _____    _____
 /  \_____/  \_____/     \__/
 ^        ^        ^        ^
                *

and with my ideal PWM I can choose which of the two behaviours I want.

> > > > > > What about disable()?
> > > > >
> > > > > Mhh well, it would do one 100% cycle.. mhh ;) Lets see if there we can
> > > > > fix that (in hardware), not much we can do in the driver here. We are
> > > > > _very_ constraint in size, therefore all that little edge cases fall
> > > > > off
> > > > > the table.
> > > >
> > > > You're saying that on disable the hardware emits a constant high level
> > > > for one cycle? I hope not ...
> > > 
> > > Mh, I was mistaken, disabling the PWM will turn it off immediately,
> > > but
> > 
> > And does turn off mean, the output gets inactive?
> > If so you might also disable the hardware if a 0% duty cycle is
> > configured assuming this saves some energy without modifying the
> > resulting wave form.
> 
> Disabling it has some side effects like switching to another function
> for this multi function pin. So I'd rather keep it on ;)

So IMHO you should also keep it on when pwm_apply_state is called with
state.enabled = false to ensure a low output.

> > > one 100% duty cycle may happen if you change from a higher to a lower
> > > duty cycle setting. See above.
> > > 
> > > > I never programmed a CPLD to emulate a hardware PWM, but I wonder if
> > > > these are really edge cases that increase the size of the binary?!
> > > 
> > > At the moment there is only one 8bit register which stores the value
> > > which is used for matching. If you want to change that setting after
> > > a whole cycle, you'd use another 8bit register to cache the new value.
> > > So this would at least needs 8 additional flip-flops. This doesn't
> > > sound much, but we are already near 100% usage of the CPLD. So its
> > > hard to convince people why this is really necessary.
> > 
> > OK. (Maybe there is enough space to allow implementing 100% for mode 0?)
> 
> Little bit here a little bit there ;) TBH there are some more critical
> bugs which would need to be fixed first. So this would need to be a
> limitation for now.

Ok for me.

Best regards
Uwe

-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           | Uwe Kleine-König            |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | https://www.pengutronix.de/ |

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