Re: [PATCH v10 0/8] Introduce on-chip interconnect API

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2018 at 12:41:35PM -0800, Evan Green wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 10:03 AM Georgi Djakov <georgi.djakov@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Modern SoCs have multiple processors and various dedicated cores (video, gpu,
> > graphics, modem). These cores are talking to each other and can generate a
> > lot of data flowing through the on-chip interconnects. These interconnect
> > buses could form different topologies such as crossbar, point to point buses,
> > hierarchical buses or use the network-on-chip concept.
> >
> > These buses have been sized usually to handle use cases with high data
> > throughput but it is not necessary all the time and consume a lot of power.
> > Furthermore, the priority between masters can vary depending on the running
> > use case like video playback or CPU intensive tasks.
> >
> > Having an API to control the requirement of the system in terms of bandwidth
> > and QoS, so we can adapt the interconnect configuration to match those by
> > scaling the frequencies, setting link priority and tuning QoS parameters.
> > This configuration can be a static, one-time operation done at boot for some
> > platforms or a dynamic set of operations that happen at run-time.
> >
> > This patchset introduce a new API to get the requirement and configure the
> > interconnect buses across the entire chipset to fit with the current demand.
> > The API is NOT for changing the performance of the endpoint devices, but only
> > the interconnect path in between them.
> 
> For what it's worth, we are ready to land this in Chrome OS. I think
> this series has been very well discussed and reviewed, hasn't changed
> much in the last few spins, and is in good enough shape to use as a
> base for future patches. Georgi's also done a great job reaching out
> to other SoC vendors, and there appears to be enough consensus that
> this framework will be usable by more than just Qualcomm. There are
> also several drivers out on the list trying to add patches to use this
> framework, with more to come, so it made sense (to us) to get this
> base framework nailed down. In my experiments this is an important
> piece of the overall power management story, especially on systems
> that are mostly idle.
> 
> I'll continue to track changes to this series and we will ultimately
> reconcile with whatever happens upstream, but I thought it was worth
> sending this note to express our "thumbs up" towards this framework.

Looks like a v11 will be forthcoming, so I'll wait for that one to apply
it to the tree if all looks good.

thanks,

greg k-h