On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 3:07 PM Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 05:58:19PM -0400, Michael Chan wrote:
> > The current driver APIs to send messages to the firmware allow only one
> > outstanding message in flight.  There is only one buffer for the firmware
> > response for each firmware channel.  To send a firmware message, all
> > callers must take a mutex and it is released after the firmware response
> > has been read.  This scheme does not allow multiple firmware messages
> > in flight.  Firmware may take a long time to respond to some messages
> > (e.g. NVRAM related ones) and this causes the mutex to be held for
> > a long time, blocking other callers.
> >
> > This patchset intoduces the new driver APIs to address the above
> > shortcomings.  All callers are then updated to use the new APIs.
>
> Hi Michael
>
> Does the firmware already support this? Or is a firmware upgrade also
> required.
>

These changes are compatible with new and old firmware.  With newer
firmware, the code introduced in patch 11 will take advantage of the
deferred firmware responses for commands that take longer to complete.
The APIs will then allow another command to be sent to the firmware.

Thanks.