Re: [PATCH net-next v3 2/4] dt-bindings: net: phy: add MaxLinear GPY2xx bindings

[Michael Walle <michael@walle.cc>]

Am 2023-01-13 17:38, schrieb Rob Herring:
> On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 4:30 PM Michael Walle <michael@walle.cc> wrote:
>> 
>> Am 2023-01-11 21:26, schrieb Rob Herring:
>> > On Mon, Jan 09, 2023 at 01:30:11PM +0100, Michael Walle wrote:
>> >> Add the device tree bindings for the MaxLinear GPY2xx PHYs, which
>> >> essentially adds just one flag: maxlinear,use-broken-interrupts.
>> >>
>> >> One might argue, that if interrupts are broken, just don't use
>> >> the interrupt property in the first place. But it needs to be more
>> >> nuanced. First, this interrupt line is also used to wake up systems by
>> >> WoL, which has nothing to do with the (broken) PHY interrupt handling.
>> >
>> > I don't understand how this is useful. If the interrupt line is
>> > asserted
>> > after the 1st interrupt, how is it ever deasserted later on to be
>> > useful.
>> 
>> Nobody said, that the interrupt line will stay asserted. The broken
>> behavior is that of the PHY doesn't respond *immediately* with a
>> deassertion of the interrupt line after the its internal status
>> register is cleared. Instead there is a random delay of up to 2ms.
> 
> With only "keep the interrupt line asserted even after the interrupt
> status register is cleared", I assume that means forever, not some
> delay.

Fair enough. I'll send a doc patch.

>> There is already a workaround to avoid an interrupt storm by delaying
>> the ISR until the line is actually cleared. *But* if this line is
>> a shared one. The line is blocked by these 2ms and important
>> interrupts (like PTP timestaming) of other devices on this line
>> will get delayed. Therefore, the only viabale option is to disable
>> the interrupts handling in the broken PHY altogether. I.e. the line
>> will never be asserted by the broken PHY.
> 
> Okay, that makes more sense.
> 
> So really, this is just an 'is shared interrupt' flag. If not shared,
> then there's no reason to not use the interrupt?

Correct.

> Assuming all
> interrupts are described in DT, we already have that information. It's
> just hard and inefficient to get it. You have to parse all interrupts
> with the same parent and check for the same cells. If we're going to
> add something more explicit, we should consider something common. It's
> not the first time shared interrupts have come up, and we probably
> have some properties already. For something common, I'd probably make
> this a flag in interrupt cells rather than a property. That would
> handle cases with multiple interrupts better.

What kind of flag do you have in mind? Could you give an example?

-michael