Re: [PATCH v6 2/2] memory: atmel-ebi: add DT bindings documentation

[Boris Brezillon]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2016 14:18:25 +0200
Jean-Jacques Hiblot <jjhiblot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> > +
> >> > +- atmel,ncs-rd-setup-ns
> >> > +- atmel,nrd-setup-ns
> >> > +- atmel,ncs-wr-setup-ns
> >> > +- atmel,nwe-setup-ns
> >> > +- atmel,ncs-rd-pulse-ns
> >> > +- atmel,nrd-pulse-ns
> >> > +- atmel,ncs-wr-pulse-ns
> >> > +- atmel,nwe-pulse-ns
> >> > +- atmel,nwe-cycle-ns
> >> > +- atmel,nrd-cycle-ns
> >> > +- atmel,tdf-ns  
> >>
> >> One thought about the configuration in 'ns' unit: Some devices may
> >> have requirements expressed in clock cycles (I'm thinking of FPGA
> >> here). At  a fixed frequency one can always convert manually from 'ns'
> >> to 'clocks' but it's a bit tedious and prone to rounding errors. And
> >> It 'll  break when the EBI frequency is changed  
> >
> > If you don't mind, I'd like to first get this version accepted, and
> > we'll extend it with timings expressed in clock cycles afterward.
> >
> > BTW, could you describe a real use case where timings should be
> > expressed in clock cycles? I mean, usually the devices have some timing
> > constraints (tXX_min = Y ns), and I don't see why it would differ for
> > FPGA interfaces, but I'm clearly not an FPGA expert.  
> 
> I'm not either, I only toyed with FPGA. That's just what experienced
> FPGA designer told me.
> I guess that it boils down to: FPGA are more suited for a synchronous
> design than an asynchronous one.

The thing is, all the timings are based on the master clock, and,
AFAICS, this clk signal is not exposed, so you're basing your clk-cycle
based timings on something that can change depending on how the
bootstrap/bootloader decided to configure the master clk.

One option would be to define one of the timing as the reference,
define this one in nanosecond, and define the other ones as multiple of
the reference timing. But I'm not sure it's easier to do that than
defining all the timings directly in nanoseconds.

-- 
Boris Brezillon, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
http://free-electrons.com