[RFC PATCH 0/3] Add HiSilicon system timer driver

[Yicong Yang]

Hi Mark,

On 2023/10/11 18:38, Mark Rutland wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 11, 2023 at 10:10:11AM +0800, Yicong Yang wrote:
>> On 2023/10/11 0:36, Marc Zyngier wrote:
>>> On Tue, 10 Oct 2023 13:30:30 +0100,
>>> Yicong Yang <yangyicong at huawei.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> From: Yicong Yang <yangyicong at hisilicon.com>
>>>>
>>>> HiSilicon system timer is a memory mapped platform timer compatible with
>>>> the arm's generic timer specification. The timer supports both SPI and
>>>> LPI interrupt and can be enumerated through ACPI DSDT table. Since the
>>>> timer is fully compatible with the spec, it can reuse most codes of the
>>>> arm_arch_timer driver. However since the arm_arch_timer driver only
>>>> supports GTDT and SPI interrupt, this series support the HiSilicon system
>>>> timer by:
>>>>
>>>> - refactor some of the arm_arch_timer codes and export the function to
>>>>   register a arch memory timer by other drivers
>>>> - retrieve the IO memory and interrupt resource through DSDT in a separate
>>>>   driver, then setup and register the clockevent device reuse the arm_arch_timer
>>>>   function
>>>>
>>>> Using LPI for the timer is mentioned in BSA Spec section 3.8.1 (DEN0094C 1.0C).
>>>
>>> This strikes me as pretty odd. LPIs are, by definition, *edge*
>>> triggered. The timer interrupt must be *level* triggered. So there
>>> must be some bridge in the middle that is going to regenerate edges on
>>> EOI, and that cannot be architectural.
>>>
>>> What am I missing?
>>
>> In our case, if the timer is working on LPI mode, it's not directly connected
>> to the GIC. It'll be wired to hisi-mbigen irqchip which will send LPIs to the
>> GIC.
> 
> In that case, the timerr itself isn't using an LPI: it's wired to a secondary
> interrupt controller, and the secondary interrupt controller is using an LPI.
> 
> The BSA doesn't describe that as a permitted configuration.
> 
> I think there are two problems here:
> 
> (1) The BSA spec is wrong, and shouldn't say "or LPI" here as it simply doesn't
>     make sense.
> 
>     I think this should be fixed by removing the "or LPI" wording form the BSA
>     spec for this interrupt.
> 
> (2) This platform is not compatible with the BSA, and is not compatible with
>     the existing ACPI bindings in the GTDT.
> 
> Do you actually need this wakeup timer?
> 

Thanks for the quick feedback!

So the LPI timer mentioned in the BSA spec is probably a mistake and our LPI
mode is not compatible to the BSA spec. Then I need to discuss with my team
and re-evaluate the solution for the LPI mode of the timer.

Thanks,
Yicong