Re: [PATCH v4 04/16] dt-bindings: power: supply: BD72720 managed battery

[Matti Vaittinen]

On 17/11/2025 17:23, Rob Herring wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 10:12:01AM +0200, Matti Vaittinen wrote:
> > On 14/11/2025 18:39, Rob Herring wrote:
> > > On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 11:04:27AM +0200, Matti Vaittinen wrote:
> > > > On 13/11/2025 12:53, Rob Herring (Arm) wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, 13 Nov 2025 10:52:19 +0200, Matti Vaittinen wrote:
> > > > > > From: Matti Vaittinen <mazziesaccount@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > //snip
> >
> > > >

> > For VDR there are only:
> >
> > rohm,voltage-vdr-thresh-microvolt,
>
> So "voltage voltage drop rate"? And '-microvolt' says this is voltage
> too. :)

Hm. Yes. This is a threshold voltage for applying the "zero-correction" 
algorithm, which uses these "VDR" (a.k.a voltage drop rate) tables. Eg, 
the algorithm should only used for the correction when battery voltage 
drops below this threshold. AFAICS, this is usually designed to be 
slightly higher than the voltage where the system stays still operable. 
I suppose this could also be "zero-correction-threshold", but this would 
introduce another "buzzword".

> > rohm,volt-drop-soc-bp,
> > rohm,volt-drop-temperatures-millicelsius
> >
> > and
> >
> > patternProperties:
> >    '^rohm,volt-drop-[0-9]-microvolt':
> >
> > So, from the binding point of view (.yaml), it's not _that_ lot. In the .dts
> > there will be quite some noise as the tables have several values.
> >
> >
> > > If that
> > > happens, either we are doing a poor job of generically describing
> > > battery parameters or chargers and batteries are tightly coupled and
> > > can't be described independently.
> >
> > I am under impression that chargers tend to be pretty flexible, and they can
> > be configured to work with many different batteries by altering the charging
> > profiles. Most of the battery properties (like and charging phases [like
> > pre, CC, CV], their limits, currents and voltages etc) are very generally
> > usable. So, large subset of charging functionality can be handled with
> > standard properties. I believe it is only the fuel-gauging where things get
> > more hairy.
> >
> > I did prepare a series which does the split and adds new compatible for the
> > 'rohm,vdr-battery'. (The power-supply class is not yet modified in the
> > series, but we would probably want to modify the battery-info getters to
> > also accept the 'rohm,vdr-battery' -compatible.)
>
> I don't think that's the right direction. It's not a Rohm battery.
>
> > I wonder if I should actually prepare also a series where these properties
> > are just placed in the existing static battery node without adding new
> > compatible. That way it would be easier to see which way is better.
>
> That seems like the right thing to do here.
>
> The main question for me is whether these should even be Rohm specific?
> That would probably require a 2nd user to answer for sure.

This is a question Linus W asked as well :)
I believe this technique could be applied to other batteries. I, 
however, am not aware of any other than ROHM charger drivers which 
implement the algorithm. Furthermore, I was told that the mechanism to 
measure these "VDR-tables" for batteries is one of those things which 
should be "kept under your hat". I think ROHM has also patented some 
stuff related to that. Hence I prefixed these tables by "rohm,".

I have no strong objections to dropping the "rohm," though - but I doubt 
these tables will be heavily used by any other but ROHM chargers.

> > If I do that, should I only spin these bindings as RFC to avoid the
> > unnecessary noise?
>
> Only if you think something is not complete and/or the patches should
> not be applied.

Oh, Ok. Then I will send only one of the approaches - probably the one 
where properties are added to the simple-battery.

Thanks for all the support!

Yours,
	-- Matti

---
Matti Vaittinen
Linux kernel developer at ROHM Semiconductors
Oulu Finland

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