[patch 20/48] x86/apic: Enable TSC coupled programming mode

From: Thomas Gleixner

Date: Tue Feb 24 2026 - 11:38:50 EST


The TSC deadline timer is directly coupled to the TSC and setting the next
deadline is tedious as the clockevents core code converts the
CLOCK_MONOTONIC based absolute expiry time to a relative expiry by reading
the current time from the TSC. It converts that delta to cycles and hands
the result to lapic_next_deadline(), which then has read to the TSC and add
the delta to program the timer.

The core code now supports coupled clock event devices and can provide the
expiry time in TSC cycles directly without reading the TSC at all.

This obviouly works only when the TSC is the current clocksource, but
that's the default for all modern CPUs which implement the TSC deadline
timer. If the TSC is not the current clocksource (e.g. early boot) then the
core code falls back to the relative set_next_event() callback as before.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: x86@xxxxxxxxxx
---
arch/x86/Kconfig | 1 +
arch/x86/include/asm/clock_inlined.h | 8 ++++++++
arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c | 12 ++++++------
arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c | 3 ++-
4 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

--- a/arch/x86/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/x86/Kconfig
@@ -164,6 +164,7 @@ config X86
select EDAC_SUPPORT
select GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS_BROADCAST if X86_64 || (X86_32 && X86_LOCAL_APIC)
select GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS_BROADCAST_IDLE if GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS_BROADCAST
+ select GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS_COUPLED_INLINE if X86_64
select GENERIC_CLOCKEVENTS_MIN_ADJUST
select GENERIC_CMOS_UPDATE
select GENERIC_CPU_AUTOPROBE
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/clock_inlined.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/clock_inlined.h
@@ -11,4 +11,12 @@ static __always_inline u64 arch_inlined_
return (u64)rdtsc_ordered();
}

+struct clock_event_device;
+
+static __always_inline void
+arch_inlined_clockevent_set_next_coupled(u64 cycles, struct clock_event_device *evt)
+{
+ native_wrmsrq(MSR_IA32_TSC_DEADLINE, cycles);
+}
+
#endif
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c
@@ -591,14 +591,14 @@ static void setup_APIC_timer(void)

if (this_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_TSC_DEADLINE_TIMER)) {
levt->name = "lapic-deadline";
- levt->features &= ~(CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_PERIODIC |
- CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_DUMMY);
+ levt->features &= ~(CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_PERIODIC | CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_DUMMY);
+ levt->features |= CLOCK_EVT_FEAT_CLOCKSOURCE_COUPLED;
+ levt->cs_id = CSID_X86_TSC;
levt->set_next_event = lapic_next_deadline;
- clockevents_config_and_register(levt,
- tsc_khz * (1000 / TSC_DIVISOR),
- 0xF, ~0UL);
- } else
+ clockevents_config_and_register(levt, tsc_khz * (1000 / TSC_DIVISOR), 0xF, ~0UL);
+ } else {
clockevents_register_device(levt);
+ }

apic_update_vector(smp_processor_id(), LOCAL_TIMER_VECTOR, true);
}
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/tsc.c
@@ -1203,7 +1203,8 @@ static struct clocksource clocksource_ts
CLOCK_SOURCE_VALID_FOR_HRES |
CLOCK_SOURCE_CAN_INLINE_READ |
CLOCK_SOURCE_MUST_VERIFY |
- CLOCK_SOURCE_VERIFY_PERCPU,
+ CLOCK_SOURCE_VERIFY_PERCPU |
+ CLOCK_SOURCE_HAS_COUPLED_CLOCK_EVENT,
.id = CSID_X86_TSC,
.vdso_clock_mode = VDSO_CLOCKMODE_TSC,
.enable = tsc_cs_enable,