Re: [PATCH 2/2] spi: imx: fix use of native chip-selects with devicetree

From: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
To: Greg Ungerer <gerg@linux-m68k.org>
Cc: "Sascha Hauer" <s.hauer@pengutronix.de>,
	linux-spi <linux-spi@vger.kernel.org>,
	"linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org"
	<linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org>,
	"Sascha Hauer" <kernel@pengutronix.de>,
	"Uwe Kleine-König" <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>,
	"Fabio Estevam" <fabio.estevam@nxp.com>,
	"Shawn Guo" <shawnguo@kernel.org>,
	"Vladimir Zapolskiy" <vladimir_zapolskiy@mentor.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] spi: imx: fix use of native chip-selects with devicetree
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2017 08:09:35 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAMuHMdW+sqSyoQUE7sGPKoXy7n9Bh2QGg5BNA1EP5=eW4GKTVA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <51a48190-9edb-093e-a6fc-a7cb8c1e0ce0@linux-m68k.org>

Hi Greg,

On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 1:50 AM, Greg Ungerer <gerg@linux-m68k.org> wrote:
> On 22/03/17 06:15, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Uwe Kleine-König
>> <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 11:22:27PM +1000, Greg Ungerer wrote:
>>>> On 21/03/17 22:11, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 09:53:52PM +1000, Greg Ungerer wrote:
>>>>>> On 21/03/17 18:05, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 12:05:20PM +1000, Greg Ungerer wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 20/03/17 23:22, Vladimir Zapolskiy wrote:
>>>>>>>>> For that type of bindings locally I have a hackish spi-imx driver change,
>>>>>>>>> which supports this option, but I'm unsure if it is universal enough.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Do you mean supporting no cs-gpios tag?
>>>>>>>> That would be nice, but it would seem not many users of this are
>>>>>>>> using native chip selects.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The reason for this is that the native chip selects are less flexible
>>>>>>> than gpios because you cannot control when they deassert. IIRC they do
>>>>>>> it too much for some chips. So the only reason to stick to them is that
>>>>>>> on some SoCs not all pins have a GPIO function. Not sure if transfer
>>>>>>> speed is another reason, but I would expect that the gain isn't that
>>>>>>> big.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For the particular SPI device I am using, a Silicon Labs 32260,
>>>>>> it actually wants the assertion and de-assertion of the chip-select
>>>>>> between each byte. So it is the only way it can work for me.
>>>>>
>>>>> That should be doable with gpio-cs, too. You just need the right flags
>>>>> in your spi transfer IIRC.
>>>>
>>>> Do you know which flag(s)  do that?
>>>
>>> Looking at the source it's not about flags, but you have to split your
>>> transfer into several messages.
>>
>> ... and set spi_transfer.cs_change.
>
> Yep, that looks like the one. Though it would appear not all
> spi drivers support it. The spi-imx driver for one doesn't look
> at it at all.

Correct. With many drivers, you must use cs-gpios to support that feature.
Remember, SPI is a mixed bag of features, and not all of them are supported
on all controllers.

>>> AFAICT that's how the spi stuff is
>>> supposed to work. That is, at the start of a message CS is asserted and
>>> (only) at it's end CS is deasserted. So the imx core with native chip
>>> select actually misbehaves by toggling CS between each word.
>>
>> Indeed.
>
> If you look around the kernel source for cs_change there is
> a number of devices that use it. A bunch od ADC/DACs in
> particular (including in backlight support).
>
> So I don't know that I would characterize the iMX one as
> misbehaving so much as only natively supporting the model
> where chip select is asserted/deasserted per burst. It is
> strait forward to implement the GPIO method instead of the
> native chip select with the iMX pin multiplexing.

It's up to the system integrator to specify cs-gpios when needed.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds

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