From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jassi Brar Subject: Re: [PATCH v11 2/6] mailbox: qcom: Create APCS child device for clock controller Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2018 09:14:13 +0530 Message-ID: References: <20171205154701.27730-1-georgi.djakov@linaro.org> <20171205154701.27730-3-georgi.djakov@linaro.org> <20171224050625.GH12655@minitux> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-clk-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Georgi Djakov Cc: Bjorn Andersson , Stephen Boyd , Michael Turquette , Rob Herring , linux-clk@vger.kernel.org, Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-arm-msm@vger.kernel.org, Devicetree List List-Id: linux-arm-msm@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 10:26 PM, Georgi Djakov wrote: > Hi Jassi, > > On 12/29/2017 08:14 AM, Jassi Brar wrote: >> Hi Bjorn, >> >> On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 10:36 AM, Bjorn Andersson >> wrote: >>> On Fri 22 Dec 20:57 PST 2017, Jassi Brar wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 9:16 PM, Georgi Djakov wrote: >>>>> There is a clock controller functionality provided by the APCS hardware >>>>> block of msm8916 devices. The device-tree would represent an APCS node >>>>> with both mailbox and clock provider properties. >>>>> >>>> The spec might depict a 'clock' box and 'mailbox' box inside the >>>> bigger APCS box. However, from the code I see in this patchset, they >>>> are orthogonal and can & should be represented as independent DT >>>> nodes. >>> >>> The APCS consists of a number of different hardware blocks, one of them >>> being the "APCS global" block, which is what this node and drivers >>> relate to. On 8916 this contains both the IPC register and clock >>> control. But it's still just one block according to the hardware >>> specification. >>> >>> As such DT should describe the one hardware block by one node IMHO. >>> >> In my even humbler opinion, DT should describe a h/w functional unit >> which _could_ be seen as a standalone component. > > The APCS is one separate register block related to the CPU cluster. I > haven't seen any strict guidelines for such cases in the DT docs, and > during the discussion got the impression that this is the preferred > binding. Rob has also reviewed the binding, so we should be fine to move > forward with this one. > Well, I can't overrule Rob. But I am really not happy with random device spawning from mailbox drivers. I know there are such instances already in the kernel but that doesn't make it legit... unless there is some hard dependency. Is there? >> For example, if this APCS had a mac controller, would we also populate >> a netdev from mailbox driver? And what if next revision moves/drops >> this clock controller out of APCS, keeping mailbox controller exactly >> same? > > The clock controller may change in some next SoC architecture and that's > why the SoC version is also part of the the compatible string. > So the mailbox driver will be updated to spawn yet another type of clock? And again for next revision and so on... I know that is unlikely but the point is why not have separate clock drivers for independent h/w clocks? I'll let Rob take the final call. Cheers!