On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 05:58:26PM +0200, Sebastian Hesselbarth wrote:
On 06/29/2013 05:06 PM, Daniel Drake wrote:
On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Russell King - ARM Linux linux@arm.linux.org.uk wrote:
Sure... lets add some background info first: the big problem here is the completely different register layouts for the clock register:
On Armada 510: 31:30 - select the clock input from 4 possible sources: 0 - AXI, 1 - EXT0, 2 - PLL, 3 - EXT1 29 - loads the divider values 27:16 - (broken) fractional divider - you never want to use this 15:0 - integer divider
The reason why I called fractional divider broken is because it skips clock cycles which renders the clock useless for continuous clocking requirements. For smart panel SPI, it might work - but as soon as no board with that pops up, I suggest not to go for it.
I think you mean "let's ignore the fractional divider until we have a board which uses a smart panel".
With your clear explanations I think I can come up with an implementation that takes all these factors into account, offering access to a great deal of the available functionality. Should not be too difficult now that we have had this discussion, and I'd be happy to do so. But before I do that, a question popped up into my mind: is this complexity really worth it?
Depends, with per-SoC callbacks we should be safe for every possible requirement. With DT, the user always will have the option to add/remove clocks passed by clocks/clock-names matching his requirements.
That, I think, is why clock names have to be mandatory for this driver, so we know what each DT clock specified actually is. We can't really go and just specify one or two clocks when they may just be the external clocks and have no way for the driver to know that.
For OLPC, we only ever use LCD1 with divider 2 for our panel, which only has 1 resolution. I think we use the fast AXI clock for HDMI path, which has a separate SCLK register. For armada 510, it looks like you are quite happy with the EXT1 clock, and you mentioned that on the 16x most of the clocks are broken, which might mean there is again just one clock of preference?
As soon as you are required to use EDID provided modes, you will have to provide the exact clock rate. With broken fractional divider on Dove above, you are stuck to integer division. And none of the internal frequencies give you multiple of 74.25MHz which is what you want for TV applications. So for Dove, you almost always want to use extclk, if connected to an external pll.
Ahem. There is no such thing as an "exact clock rate". Even the world's most accurate clock (caesium fountain) is only accurate to 1 part in 10^14! (I have in the past worked in an equipment calibration laboratory with their own Rubidium standard synchronized to a remote Caesium fountain standard at the UK NPL, so you'll excuse me for being a pedant when it comes to that!)
All that's required here is a clock rate which is "good enough". Getting it accurate to 4 significant digits is likely to be "good enough".
The problem here is that the internal clocks are be 2GHz divided by an integer divider. The closest to 74.25MHz from the Dove's internal clocks is with a divider of 27, which gives you 74.07MHz, which is off by about 2.4% - far from "good enough", especially when you consider the video/ audio sync issues that would cause (you'd need about 1 additional audio sample per 50).
So, could we just specify per-CRTC clock preference in platform data, DT, or something like that? e.g. we could just specify which SCLK bits to set and clear, and which Linux-level struct clk is engaged as a result. It adds a little burden for the platform implementor, but it would avoid all of the complications that you have mentioned. Or do you have a preference for the added flexibility?
I suggest not to do any sophisticated approach to determine the "best" clock. Just set the SCLK source determined by the name of first clock passed either by DT or platform_data. This gives everybody the flexibility but keeps implementation overhead small.
The problem this gives is we need to know what SCLK setting to use, and I don't think specifying raw register values in DT is a particularly good solution to that.