Re: [PATCH v11 08/14] usb: otg: add OTG/dual-role core

[Felipe Balbi]

Hi,

Peter Chen <hzpeterchen@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> >> >> >>> + * @otg_dev: OTG controller device, if needs to be used with OTG core.
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> do you really know of any platform which has a separate OTG controller?
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > Andrew had pointed out in [1] that Tegra210 has separate blocks for OTG, host
>> >> >> > and gadget.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > [1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ports.tegra/22969
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> that's not an OTG controller, it's just a mux. No different than Intel's
>> >> >> mux for swapping between XHCI and peripheral-only DWC3.
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> frankly, I would NEVER talk about OTG when type-C comes into play. They
>> >> >> are two competing standards and, apparently, type-C is winning when it
>> >> >> comes to role-swapping.
>> >> >> 
>> >> >
>> >> > In fact, OTG is mis-used by people. Currently, if the port is dual-role,
>> >> > It will be considered as an OTG port.
>> >> 
>> >> That's because "dual-role" is a non-standard OTG. Seen as people really
>> >> didn't care about OTG, we (linux-usb folks) ended up naturally referring
>> >> to "non-standard OTG" as "dual-role". Just to avoid confusion.
>> >
>> > So, unless we use OTG FSM defined in OTG spec, we should not mention
>> > "OTG" in Linux, right?
>> 
>> to avoid confusion with the terminology, yes. With that settled, let's
>> figure out how you can deliver what your marketting guys are asking of
>> you.
>> 
>
> Since nxp SoC claims they are OTG compliance, we need to pass usb.org
> test. The internal bsp has passed PET test, and formal compliance test
> is on the way (should pass too). 
>
> The dual-role and OTG compliance use the same zImage, but different
> dtb.

okay, that's good to know. Now, the question really is: considering we
only have one user for this generic OTG FSM layer, do we really need to
make it generic at all? I mean, just look at how invasive a change that
is.

My fear is that, as stated before, we don't have enough variance to be
able to design something that many could use. On top of that, most folks
are moving to type-c connector which, in reality, can't really implement
OTG.

Considering that Apple/Intel have already announced [1] that they will
use type-c connector, it's not too farfetched to speculate that CarPlay
will, eventually, rely on Power Delivery for role swapping. IOW, OTG has
its days counted. In 2 years' time, the market will have moved on to
Type-C and the generic OTG layer will be left to bit rot as time goes
by.

This is why I think that these changes should be local to chipidea,
considering chipidea is the only user for them. As for dwc3, we can get
something much simpler since, at least so far, there's no full OTG
requirement from anywhere I know and, even if OTG becomes a requirement
for any of dwc3 users, the HW handles the state machine for us.

What do you think?

[1] https://thunderbolttechnology.net/blog/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-does-it-all

-- 
balbi

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