Re: [PATCH v4 1/2] dt-bindings: Add bindings for BrcmSTB SCMI mailbox driver

[Jim Quinlan <james.quinlan@broadcom.com>]

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On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 1:27 PM Sudeep Holla <sudeep.holla@arm.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Nov 05, 2020 at 10:28:25AM -0500, Jim Quinlan wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 10:13 AM Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 4:04 PM Jim Quinlan <james.quinlan@broadcom.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 4:50 PM Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 03:59:06PM -0400, Jim Quinlan wrote:
> > > > > > Bindings are added.  Only one interrupt is needed because
> > > > > > we do not yet employ the SCMI p2a channel.
> > > > >
> > > > > I still don't understand what this is. To repeat from v1: I thought SCMI
> > > > > was a mailbox consumer, not provider?
> > > >
> > > > Hi Rob,
> > > >
> > > > I'm not sure where I am implying that SCMI is a mailbox provider?
> > > > Should I not mention "SCMI" in the subject line?
> > > >
> > > > This is just a mailbox driver, "consumed" by SCMI.    Our SCMI DT node
> > > > looks like this:
> > > >
> > > > brcm_scmi_mailbox: brcm_scmi_mailbox@0 {
> > > >         #mbox-cells = <1>;
> > > >         compatible = "brcm,brcmstb-mbox";
> > > > };
> > > >
> > > > brcm_scmi@0 {
> > > >         compatible = "arm,scmi";
> > > >         mboxes = <&brcm_scmi_mailbox 0>;;
> > > >         mbox-names = "tx";
> > > >         shmem = <&NWMBOX>;
> > > >         /* ... */
> > > > };
> > >
> > > Okay, that makes more sense. Though it seems like this is just adding
> > > a pointless level of indirection to turn an interrupt into a mailbox.
> > > There's nothing more to 'the mailbox' is there?
> >
> > Correct.  Although you can see that it uses both interrupts and SMC
> > calls to get the job done.
> >
>
> I was against having 2 separate solutions and would have raised my concern
> again. As I mentioned earlier, either extend what we have or move the
> existing SMC solution into this mailbox driver. Having 2 different solution
> for this just because you have extra interrupt to deal with is definite
> NACK from me as I had previously mentioned.
>
> > > So why not either
> > > allow SCMI to have an interrupt directly
> > Not sure here -- perhaps the SCMI folks have an answer?
> >
>
> I did ask why can't you extend the existing SCMI/SMC binding to add this
> as optional feature ?
Hi Sudeep,

Looking at the email you said, "In that case any reason why you can't
reuse the existing smc transport for SCMI." ,  and I replied with the
reason.  I did not interpret your statement  above as what you are
clearly saying now: "either extend what we have or move the existing
SMC solution into this mailbox driver. "

Fair enough, I  will look into this.

Regards,
Jim


>
> > > or have a generic irq mailbox driver?
>
> Fine with this too.
>
> > The SCMI implementation doesn't offer a generic irq mailbox driver
> > AFAICT.  The SCMI folks recently provided  an "smc transport" driver
> > in "drivers/firmware/arm_scmi/smc.c" -- it is close to what we need
> > but is missing interrupts.
>
> IIRC, you were using SGIs and it can't be represented and use today as
> is ? Am  I missing something or anything has changed ?
>
> --
> Regards,
> Sudeep

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