Re: [GIT PULL 1/3] ARM: soc: exynos: Drivers for v4.9

[Kukjin Kim]

2016. 10. 3. 15:48 Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> On Sun, Oct 02, 2016 at 05:25:07PM -0700, Olof Johansson wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 05:02:40PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>>>>> On Sunday, September 18, 2016 6:39:46 PM CEST Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
>>>>> Samsung drivers/soc update for v4.9:
>>>>> 1. Allow compile testing of exynos-mct clocksource driver on ARM64.
>>>>> 2. Document Exynos5433 PMU compatible (already used by clkout driver and more
>>>>>   will be coming soon).
>>>> 
>>>> Pulled into next/drivers, thanks
>>>> 
>>>> Just for my understanding: why do we need the exynos-mct driver on ARM64
>>>> but not the delay-timer portion of it?
>>> 
>>> I think we want all of it but Doug's optimization 3252a646aa2c
>>> ("clocksource: exynos_mct: Only use 32-bits where possible") is not
>>> ARM64 friendly. One way of dealing with it would be to prepare two
>>> versions of exynos4_read_current_timer(). One reading only lower 32-bit
>>> value for ARMv7 and second (slow) reading lower and upper for ARMv8.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Is there an advantage in using MCT over the architected timer on these
>>>> chips? If so, should we also have a way to use it as the delay timer?
>>> 
>>> No, there is no real advantage... except that the SoC has some
>>> interesting "characteristics"... The timers are tightly coupled. Very
>>> tightly. I spent a lot of time and failed to boot my ARMv8 board without
>>> some MCT magic.
>> 
>> What kind of magic is that?
> 
> Most notably: the arch timer starts when MCT forward running counter
> starts. Without kicking MCT, the arch timer seems to be frozen.
> 
>> I can understand that needing the MCT for
>> some system-level timer functionality might be true (wakeups, etc),
>> but for system timesource avoiding the MMIO timer and using the arch
>> ones is a substantial performance improvement for gettimeofday() and
>> friends.
>> 
>> There was extensive discussion last year over using arch timers on
>> 5420/5422, and it fizzled out with vague comments about something not
>> working right between A15/A7 on b.L. hardware. I'm presuming whatever
>> implementation details of that SoC has since been fixed on later chips
>> (including v8). Any chance you can confirm? It'd be very nice to leave
>> MCT behind on v8 as a system time source.
> 
> Unfortunately, I cannot confirm this, at least on Exynos5433 (ARMv8). I
> played with arch and MCT timers on it and failed to get the
> arch-timer-only setup working. I did not have access to newer Exynos
> designs (Exynos 7) so I do not know how it works there.

Hi guys,

I know what Olof want to know and actually several days ago someone asked me about that. As you guys talked, a couple of years ago there were some discussions...BTW I need to contact to hardware designer before let you guys know because something needs to be confirmed by them even I know roughly.

Note I'm in vacation with my family. Will be back on this in several days with exact information.

BRs,
Kukjin