[PATCH v3 1/2] spi: implemented driver for Cirrus EP93xx SPI controller
Martin Guy
martinwguy at gmail.com
Mon Apr 19 14:52:47 EDT 2010
On 4/19/10, Grant Likely <grant.likely at secretlab.ca> wrote:
> >> > +static int ep93xx_spi_flush(const struct ep93xx_spi *espi, unsigned long msecs)
> >> > +{
> >> > + unsigned long timeout = jiffies + msecs_to_jiffies(msecs);
> >> > +
> >> > + while (ep93xx_spi_read_u16(espi, SSPSR) & SSPSR_RNE) {
> >> > + if (time_after(jiffies, timeout))
> >> > + return -ETIMEDOUT;
> >>
> >> Ouch. With the current code the driver could busy wait for 100ms! If
> >> flushing takes time, then don't busywait. Bail out to some form of
> >> deferred work. Let the kernel get on with something else.
> >
> > I've never witnessed flushing to take this whole 100ms. Timeout is
> > there just to make sure that this ends eventually. I can change it
> > to some lower value (say few msecs or something like that).
>
> Even with a lower value, the driver is still busywaiting which is bad
> for latency. If I see a lot of busywaiting, then I look very closely
> at refactoring the driver into a state machine that can easily defer
> work.
This function and all busywaiting should disappear now that the
interrupt-driven mode only interrupts once per four words instead of
doing a whole block transfer inside a single interrupts call.
> >> > + * ep93xx_spi_calc_divisors() - calculates SPI clock divisors
> >> > +
> >> > + /*
> >> > + * Calculate divisors so that we can get speed according the
> >> > + * following formula:
> >> > + * rate = spi_clock_rate / (cpsr * (1 + scr))
> >> > + *
> >> > + * cpsr must be even number and starts from 2, scr can be any number
> >> > + * between 0 and 255.
> >> > + */
> >> > + for (cpsr = 2; cpsr <= 254; cpsr += 2) {
> >> > + for (scr = 0; scr <= 255; scr++) {
> >>
> >> Non-deterministic.
Eh? Some new meaning of "non-deterministic" that I wasn'f familiar with? :)
Yes, it does look gross, but max clock rate is 3.7Mhz (7.4 in rev E2
silicon), so if your slowest device is 400kHz, in practice it only
runs the inner loop from 0 to less than 10.
How slow do SPI devices go in reality? The 254*256 divisor gives 100Hz.
> >> algebraically calculate the factors instead of an iterative loop.
> > FIFO size is max 8 frames so there should be 8 iterations when the
> > FIFO is full. So is it enought to to add check that we only read
> > max 8 frames from the FIFO?
>
> If you do it right, FIFO size shouldn't matter. The driver should
> easily be able to read however many are available and defer until more
> is ready.
Again, with the new interrupt-handling code you have to know the FIFO
size because if you regulate the TX filling with the FIFO_NOT_FULL_YET
status bit you end up with 8 words in the TX FIFO plus one word being
transmitted already and that makes 9, which can overflow the receive
buffer (I've seen this happening in practice).
M
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