Re: [PATCH 2/2] spi: bcm-mspi: Add support for Broadcom MSPI driver.

From: Scott Branden
Date: Thu May 14 2015 - 14:19:20 EST


Hi Mark,

On 15-05-14 03:31 AM, Mark Brown wrote:
On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 05:19:06PM -0700, Scott Branden wrote:

The purpose of this mspi interface is to connect to NOR flash. There are
other SPI interfaces on the devices used to connect to other SPI devies. We
don't have any need to support full duplex slaves on this port (NOR have any
hardware wired this way - pun realized after typing this).

Chip vendors often say this sort of thing and then get surprised by what
their users choose to do, and even if it only ever gets used with flash
all it would take is some new flash command which can use full duplex
for something. Please write the code so it at least tries to handle
full duplex operation, if you can't test it fully that's not the end of
the world. It doesn't look like it should be particularly difficult.

Yes, there is always room for improvements in code. In this case - it really is not worth our time to add code we can't test. We try to deliver code that we can test and actually works. Yes, if anyone needs to use the mspi for full duplex operation code can be added in the future - it is software. This block has gone through many generations of our SoCs and has only been used for this purpose - the bootROM boots from this SPI only. It is dedicated for this purpose.

Also, there are other SPI blocks on the SoC that are used for connect other SPI devices. These SPI blocks are properly designed for full-duplex operation. This mspi block is designed for connecting to NOR flash.

Regards,
Scott



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