Re: [PATCH v2] hwmon: ina2xx: allow for actual measurement bandwidth above 160 Hz

From: Marc Titinger
Date: Tue Oct 20 2015 - 09:46:40 EST

On 20/10/2015 15:30, Guenter Roeck wrote:
On 10/20/2015 06:17 AM, Marc Titinger wrote:
On 20/10/2015 14:54, Guenter Roeck wrote:
On 10/20/2015 01:20 AM, Marc Titinger wrote:
With the current implementation, the driver will prevent a readout at a
pace faster than the default conversion time (2ms) times the averaging
setting, min AVG being 1:1.

Any sysfs "show" read access from the client app faster than 500 Hz
will be
'cached' by the driver, but actually since do_update reads all 8
registers,
the best achievable measurement rate is roughly 8*800 us (for the time
spent in i2c-core) i.e. <= 156Hz with Beagle Bone Black.

This change set uses a register mask to allow for the readout of a
single
i2c register at a time. Furthermore, performing subsequent reads on the
same register will make use of the ability of the i2c chip to retain
the
last reg offset, hence use a shorter i2c message (roughly 400us
instead of
800us spent in i2c-core.c).

That doesn't work. There could be accesses from other sources (such as
through
i2c-dev, or in multi-master systems) between two reads.

Re-setting the register address with each read transaction will not
prevent another master to change the configuration in your back, in
this case. That sounds like a general issue of concurrent clients for
one device, this is beyond just reading one register IMO.

That is an invasive change, though, not just a simple read. Sure, it is
a risk as well. But it is a different level of risk than someone using
i2cget or i2cdump while the driver is running.

Yes, I get your point.


The best readout rate for a single measurement is now around 2kHz. And
for
four measurements around (1/(4*800us) = 312 Hz. Since for any readout
rate
faster than 160 Hz the interval is set by the i2c transactions
completion,
the 'last-update' anti-flooding code will not have a limiting effect in
practice. Hence I also remove the elapsed time checking in the hwmon
driver
for ina2xx.

To summarize, the patch provides a max bandwidth improvement with hwmon
client apps from ~160 Hz to ~320 Hz, and better in single-channel
polling mode.

Overall your patch pretty much re-implements regmap. Since you drop
caching,
it is also unnecessary to read all registers at a time, so you can
just use
a function to read _one_ register and returns its value (with retries).
Or use regmap. Either case, do_update() and ina2xx_update_device()
are no
longer needed.
Agreed.


If you want to convert the driver to regmap, just look for 'regmap' in
drivers/hwmon for examples.

Fair enough, but based on your comments, I may look into an iio driver
instead for this device, given our application, rather than 'twisting'
the hwmon interface.


Sorry, you lost me there. How are you twisting the hwmon interface ?
Because I am concerned about multiple accesses from multiple sources ?
How is iio going to solve that problem ? By ignoring it ?

Sure someone can still use i2c diag tools as you said, you have a point here. But similarly, someone can use /dev/mem to remap stuff and peek/poke mm registers, and to my knowledge we do not generally design drivers or subsystems with retries and feature limitations to cope with potential use of diag and debug facilities.

M.


Not that I mind if you want to convert the driver to iio. One less driver
to take care of. Just asking.


Thanks,
Guenter


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