[RFC PATCH 0/5] Add smp booting support for Qualcomm ARMv8 SoCs

[Kumar Gala]

On Apr 10, 2015, at 5:05 AM, Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas at arm.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 09, 2015 at 12:37:06PM -0500, Kumar Gala wrote:
>> This patch set adds support for SMP boot on the MSM8x16 family of Qualcomm SoCs.
>> 
>> To support SMP on the MSM8x16 SoCs we need to add ARMv8/64-bit SCM interfaces to
>> setup the boot/release addresses for the secondary CPUs.  In addition we need
>> a uniquie set of cpu ops.  I'm aware the desired methods for booting secondary
>> CPUs is either via spintable or PSCI.  However, these SoCs are shipping with a
>> firmware that does not support those methods.
> 
> And the reason is? Some guesses:
> 
> a) QC doesn't think boot interface (and cpuidle) standardisation is
>   worth the effort (to put it nicely)
> b) The hardware was available before we even mentioned PSCI
> c) PSCI is not suitable for the QC's SCM interface
> d) Any combination of the above
> 
> I strongly suspect it's point (a). Should we expect future QC hardware
> to do the same?
> 
> You could argue the reason was (b), though we've been discussing PSCI
> for at least two years and, according to QC press releases, MSM8916
> started sampling in 2014.
> 
> The only valid reason is (c) and if that's the case, I would expect a
> proposal for a new firmware interface protocol (it could be PSCI-based),
> well documented, that can be shared with others that may encounter the
> same shortcomings.
> 
> -- 
> Catalin

Does it matter?  I’ve always felt the kernel was a place of inclusion.  Qualcomm choose for whatever reason to not use PSCI or spin table.  You don’t like it, I might not like it, but it is what it is.

- k

-- 
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.
The Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of the Code Aurora Forum,
a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project