[PATCH 2/5] clk: notifier handler for dynamic voltage scaling

[Mike Turquette]

Quoting Mike Turquette (2013-03-01 10:22:34)
> Quoting Bill Huang (2013-03-01 01:41:31)
> > On Thu, 2013-02-28 at 12:49 +0800, Mike Turquette wrote:
> > > Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (dvfs) is a common power saving
> > > technique in many of today's modern processors.  This patch introduces a
> > > common clk rate-change notifier handler which scales voltage
> > > appropriately whenever clk_set_rate is called on an affected clock.
> > 
> > I really think clk_enable and clk_disable should also be triggering
> > notifier call and DVFS should act accordingly since there are cases
> > drivers won't set clock rate but instead disable its clock directly, do
> > you agree?
> > > 
> 
> Hi Bill,
> 
> I'll think about this.  Perhaps a better solution would be to adapt
> these drivers to runtime PM.  Then a call to runtime_pm_put() would
> result in a call to clk_disable(...) and regulator_set_voltage(...).
> 
> There is no performance-based equivalent to runtime PM, which is one
> reason why clk_set_rate is a likely entry point into dvfs.  But for
> operations that have nice api's like runtime PM it would be better to
> use those interfaces and not overload the clk.h api unnecessarily.
> 

Bill,

I wasn't thinking at all when I wrote this.  Trying to rush to the
airport I guess...

clk_enable() and clk_disable() must not sleep and all operations are
done under a spinlock.  So this rules out most use of notifiers.  It is
expected for some drivers to very aggressively enable/disable clocks in
interrupt handlers so scaling voltage as a function of clk_{en|dis}able
calls is also likely out of the question.

Some platforms have chosen to implement voltage scaling in their
.prepare callbacks.  I personally do not like this and still prefer
drivers be adapted to runtime pm and let those callbacks handle voltage
scaling along with clock handling.

Regards,
Mike

> > > There are three prerequisites to using this feature:
> > > 
> > > 1) the affected clocks must be using the common clk framework
> > > 2) voltage must be scaled using the regulator framework
> > > 3) clock frequency and regulator voltage values must be paired via the
> > > OPP library
> > 
> > Just a note, Tegra Core won't meet prerequisite #3 since each regulator
> > voltage values is associated with clocks driving those many sub-HW
> > blocks in it.
> 
> This patch isn't the one and only way to perform dvfs.  It is just a
> helper function for registering notifier handlers for systems that meet
> the above three requirements.  Even if you do not use the OPP library
> there is no reason why you could not register your own rate-change
> notifier handler to implement dvfs using whatever lookup-table you use
> today.
> 
> And patches are welcome to extend the usefulness of this helper.  I'd
> like as many people to benefit from this mechanism as possible.
> 
> At some point we should think hard about DT bindings for these operating
> points...
> 
> Regards,
> Mike