Re: [RFC] clk: add flags to distinguish xtal clocks

[Luca Coelho]

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed response.

On Tue, 2013-10-08 at 10:27 -0500, Felipe Balbi wrote:
> Fixing Luca's address since he left TI

Thanks, Felipe! I wouldn't have seen this otherwise.


> On Mon, Oct 07, 2013 at 12:44:24AM -0700, Mike Turquette wrote:
> > Quoting Luciano Coelho (2013-07-29 06:50:42)
> > > Hi Mike,
> > > 
> > > On Fri, 2013-07-05 at 10:54 +0300, Luciano Coelho wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 2013-07-04 at 16:19 -0700, Mike Turquette wrote:
> > > > > Quoting Luciano Coelho (2013-07-04 15:37:45)
> > > > > > On Thu, 2013-07-04 at 15:25 -0700, Mike Turquette wrote:
> > > > > > > Or is it the same clock input and basically the problem is that you need
> > > > > > > to know what kind of waveform to expect (e.g. square versus sine)?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > It's the same clock input in the chip's perspective.  One clock input
> > > > > > that can be any of the combinations I mentioned above.  Again, I'm not
> > > > > > familiar with clocks, so I guess the square vs. sine explanation is
> > > > > > plausible.  What I could see in the firmware is that it handles the
> > > > > > clocks differently if they're xtal or not.
> > > > > 
> > > > > OMAP has a similar thing where sys_clkin (the fast reference clock for
> > > > > the chip) can be 19.2, 26, 38.4, etc. This is easy to handle since only
> > > > > the rates matter.
> > > > 
> > > > Right, this part is easy and I already have the code for that.  What I'm
> > > > missing is a way to pass this XTAL flag to the chip.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > > In your case you need some extra metadata to know what to do. I'm really
> > > > > not sure if CLK_IS_TYPE_XTAL is the most useful form this metadata can
> > > > > take. It would be best to know if the waveform is what you really need
> > > > > to know, or perhaps something else. For instance you might be affected
> > > > > by some clock signal stabilization time. Can you talk to your hardware
> > > > > guys and figure it out? I'd rather model the actual needs instead of
> > > > > just tossing a flag in there.
> > > > 
> > > > I get your point.  I have tried to investigate how this flag is used by
> > > > the firmware and I could see that it is used to set different "buffer
> > > > gains" and "delays" when waking up (I guess this means when the clock is
> > > > starting, so probably related to stabilization time).  They specify two
> > > > "modes", "boost" and "normal" and use different delay values for each.
> > > 
> > > I tried but I couldn't find any more information on how exactly this
> > > works.  But since this change is really simple and there seems to be
> > > other people who need the same information, couldn't we add it as is and
> > > try to figure out more specific information about the clocks later on?
> > > 
> > > Even if XTAL is not that useful if we know the other details, at least
> > > it wouldn't hurt to have the flag there anyway.
> > 
> > Luca,
> > 
> > By any chance did you come to a different solution for this problem? I
> > can take the patch, but I do not feel like we're solving the right
> > problem the right way.

Unfortunately I didn't find any better solution for this.  From the
WiLink firmware's point of view, there was not much information about
the details of stabilization time requirements and such.

 
> > If not I will take it for 3.13.

That would be great! As I mentioned above, the XTAL/non-XTAL flag
wouldn't hurt, even if in most cases it may not provide the necessary
details for the clock code.  But at least for the WiLink hardware it is
very useful. ;)

--
Cheers,
Luca.

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