Re: [PATCH v5 2/6] clocksource/drivers: Add a new driver for the Atmel ARM TC blocks

[Thomas Gleixner]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2018, Alexandre Belloni wrote:
> On 20/06/2018 12:58:01+0200, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> > > There are only a count up and count up then down modes. As the counter
> > > value is in a read only register, the only configurable starting value
> > > is 0 so it will always start by counting up. I'm pretty sure the up/down
> > > mode will not help us.
> > 
> > Hmm, fair enough.
> > 
> > Though the manual says:
> > 
> >      A trigger resets the counter and starts the counter clock. Three types
> >      of triggers are common to both modes, and a fourth external trigger is
> >      available to each mode.
> > 
> >      ...
> > 
> >      Software Trigger: Each channel has a software trigger, available by
> >      setting SWTRG in TC_CCR.
> > 
> > So the question is whether you can't do the following:
> > 
> >      stop_counter()
> >      issue_sw_trigger()  ---> resets the counter to zero
> >      write_compare()
> >      start_counter()
> > 
> > So that should avoid all te mess with comparing to the free running counter
> > as long as you have two blocks of counters, but then one of them will be
> > 16bit only assumed that there are always 3 counter channels in the TC.
> > 
> > Just a thought, but the code you have should work as well.
> > 
> 
> Ah yes, sure, I misunderstood your first comment then. the driver will
> register one or two clockevent devices, depending on the number of
> available channels.
> 
> The first one is based on the clocksource counter and does the counter
> comparison you don't like. the second one uses its own channel in the
> way you describe (set RC, reset counter, start counter).
> 
> This was necessary because some people are running out of TCB channels
> as they use the remaining ones as PWMs. But it is still better to use
> one channel as clocksource and clockevent that use the PIT.

Fair enough.