[for 4.12] net: qcom/emac: do not use hardware mdio automatic polling
David Miller
davem at davemloft.net
Sun Jun 4 16:34:06 PDT 2017
From: Timur Tabi <timur at codeaurora.org>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2017 16:08:13 -0500
> Use software polling (PHY_POLL) to check for link state changes instead
> of relying on the EMAC's hardware polling feature. Some PHY drivers
> are unable to get a functioning link because the HW polling is not
> robust enough.
>
> The EMAC is able to poll the PHY on the MDIO bus looking for link state
> changes (via the Link Status bit in the Status Register at address 0x1).
> When the link state changes, the EMAC triggers an interrupt and tells the
> driver what the new state is. The feature eliminates the need for
> software to poll the MDIO bus.
>
> Unfortunately, this feature is incompatible with phylib, because it
> ignores everything that the PHY core and PHY drivers are trying to do.
> In particular:
>
> 1. It assumes a compatible register set, so PHYs with different registers
> may not work.
>
> 2. It doesn't allow for hardware errata that have work-arounds implemented
> in the PHY driver.
>
> 3. It doesn't support multiple register pages. If the PHY core switches
> the register set to another page, the EMAC won't know the page has
> changed and will still attempt to read the same PHY register.
>
> 4. It only checks the copper side of the link, not the SGMII side. Some
> PHY drivers (e.g. at803x) may also check the SGMII side, and
> report the link as not ready during autonegotiation if the SGMII link
> is still down. Phylib then waits for another interrupt to query
> the PHY again, but the EMAC won't send another interrupt because it
> thinks the link is up.
>
> Cc: stable at vger.kernel.org # 4.11.x
> Tested-by: Manoj Iyer <manoj.iyer at canonical.com>
> Signed-off-by: Timur Tabi <timur at codeaurora.org>
Applied, thanks.
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