Re: [PATCH v7 1/1] pwm: imx27: workaround of the pwm output bug when decrease the duty cycle

From: Marek Vasut
Date: Fri Oct 04 2024 - 20:42:51 EST


On 10/4/24 10:58 PM, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:

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@@ -263,7 +266,77 @@ static int pwm_imx27_apply(struct pwm_chip *chip, struct pwm_device *pwm,
pwm_imx27_sw_reset(chip);
}
- writel(duty_cycles, imx->mmio_base + MX3_PWMSAR);
+ /*
+ * This is a limited workaround. When the SAR FIFO is empty, the new
+ * write value will be directly applied to SAR even the current period
+ * is not over.
+ *
+ * ─────────────────────┐
+ * PWM OUTPUT │
+ * └─────────────────────────
+ *
+ * ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
+ * Counter │ XXXXXXXXXXXXXX │
+ * └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
+ * ▲ ▲
+ * │ │
+ * New SAR Old SAR
+ *
+ * XXXX Errata happen window

Hmm, ok, so SAR is the register value that implements the duty cycle
setting. And if a new SAR is written, it is directly applied to the
hardware and this way it can happen (if SAR_new < counter < SAR_old)
that no falling edge happens in the current period. Right?

Yes

If so, I think the depicted PWM output is misleading. I'd describe and
picture it as follows:

Why not simply duplicate the ERRATA description for iMX8M Nano MX8MN_0N14Y errata sheet ?

"
ERR051198:
PWM: PWM output may not function correctly if the FIFO is empty when a new SAR value is programmed

Description:
When the PWM FIFO is empty, a new value programmed to the PWM Sample register (PWM_PWMSAR) will be directly applied even if the current timer period has not expired.

If the new SAMPLE value programmed in the PWM_PWMSAR register is less than the previous value, and the PWM counter register (PWM_PWMCNR) that contains the current COUNT value is greater than the new programmed SAMPLE value, the current period will not flip the level. This may result in an output pulse with a duty cycle of 100%.
"

That is very clear to me.

/*
* At each clock tick the hardware compares the SAR value with
* the current counter. If they are equal the output is changed
* to the inactive level.

I would skip this ^ part unless you can surely say the IP works exactly that way because you checked the RTL.

As a new SAR value is applied
* immediately to the currently running period, it can happen
* that no falling edge happens in a period and so the output is
* active for a whole period. Consider a change from
* ________
* / \______/
* ^ * ^
* to
* ____
* / \__________/
* ^ ^
*
* where SAR is written at the time marked by *. The counter
* didn't reach the old (bigger) value because it was changed
* before the counter reached that value and when the new value
* becomes active it is already lower than the current counter
* and so doesn't trigger either while the counter continues to
* grow. So the resulting waveform looks as follows:
*
* ________ ____________________
* / \______/ \__________/
* ^ ^ * ^ ^
* |<-- old SAR -->| |<-- new SAR -->|
*
* that is the output is active for a whole period.

The ascii/infographics is nice and would be good to keep, but regarding the description, frankly, the NXP errata description says the same thing in fewer words :)

*/

+ *
+ * If the new SAR value is less than the old one, and the counter is
+ * greater than the new SAR value (see above diagram XXXX), the current
+ * period will not flip the level. This will result in a pulse with a
+ * duty cycle of 100%.
+ *
+ * Check new SAR less than old SAR and current counter is in errata
+ * windows, write extra old SAR into FIFO and new SAR will effect at
+ * next period.
+ *
+ * Sometime period is quite long, such as over 1 second. If add old SAR
+ * into FIFO unconditional, new SAR have to wait for next period. It
+ * may be too long.
+ *
+ * Turn off the interrupt to ensure that not IRQ and schedule happen
+ * during above operations. If any irq and schedule happen, counter
+ * in PWM will be out of data and take wrong action.
+ *
+ * Add a safety margin 1.5us because it needs some time to complete
+ * IO write.
+ *
+ * Use __raw_writel() to minimize the interval between two writes to
+ * the SAR register to increase the fastest PWM frequency supported.
+ *
+ * When the PWM period is longer than 2us(or <500kHz), this workaround
+ * can solve this problem. No software workaround is available if PWM
+ * period is shorter than IO write.
+ */
+ c = clkrate * 1500;
+ do_div(c, NSEC_PER_SEC);
+
+ local_irq_save(flags);
+ val = FIELD_GET(MX3_PWMSR_FIFOAV, readl_relaxed(imx->mmio_base + MX3_PWMSR));
+
+ if (duty_cycles < imx->duty_cycle) {
+ if (state->period < 2000) { /* 2000ns = 500 kHz */
+ /* Best effort attempt to fix up >500 kHz case */
+ udelay(6); /* 2us per FIFO entry, 3 FIFO entries written => 6 us */

I don't understand the motivation to wait here. Wouldn't it be better to
write the old value 3 - val times and not sleep?

No, because you would overflow the FIFO, see:

137fd45ffec1 ("pwm: imx: Avoid sample FIFO overflow for i.MX PWM version2")

Or busy loop until
MX3_PWMSR_FIFOAV becomes 0?

Do we really want a busy wait here if we can avoid it ?

We can do udelay(3 * state->period / 1000); so faster PWMs would wait shorter.

The delay is here to basically wait until the FIFO is surely empty and has space for 3 consecutive writes (see the commit above wrt. FIFO overflow).

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