[PATCH] soc: amlogic: clk-measure: Optimize measurement accuracy

[Martin Blumenstingl]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2025 at 8:14 AM Chuan Liu <chuan.liu at amlogic.com> wrote:
>
> hi Marti:
>
>
> On 7/17/2025 11:43 PM, Martin Blumenstingl wrote:
> > [ EXTERNAL EMAIL ]
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > thank you for this patch!
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 5:08 AM Chuan Liu via B4 Relay
> > <devnull+chuan.liu.amlogic.com at kernel.org> wrote:
> >> From: Chuan Liu <chuan.liu at amlogic.com>
> >>
> >> The cycle count register has a 20-bit effective width, but the driver
> >> only utilizes 16 bits. This reduces the sampling window when measuring
> >> high-frequency clocks, resulting in (slightly) degraded measurement
> >> accuracy.
> > I checked the Meson8 downstream code [0] and it uses 0x000FFFFF to
> > mask the register value -> this means that old SoCs also have a 20-bit
> > wide width.
> >
> > [...]
> >> Here are the test comparisons based on C3:
> > [...]
> >> Here are the test comparisons based on C3:
> > I have tested this patch with Meson8b based Odroid-C1:
> > pre-optimization:
> > # time cat /sys/kernel/debug/meson-clk-msr/measure_summary | grep -v "  0  "
> >    clock                     rate    precision
> > ---------------------------------------------
> >   clk81                 159372396    +/-5208Hz
> >   a9_clk_div16           24000000    +/-3125Hz
> >   rtc_osc_clk_out           31250    +/-3125Hz
> >   hdmi_ch0_tmds         146399038    +/-4807Hz
> >   sar_adc                 1140625    +/-3125Hz
> >   sdhc_rx                94443750    +/-3125Hz
> >   sdhc_sd                94443750    +/-3125Hz
> >   pwm_d                 849921875    +/-31250Hz
> >   pwm_c                 849921875    +/-31250Hz
> >
> > real    0m0.102s
> > user    0m0.005s
> > sys     0m0.069s
> >
> >
> > post-optimization:
> > # time cat /sys/kernel/debug/meson-clk-msr/measure_summary | grep -v "  0  "
> >    clock                     rate    precision
> > ---------------------------------------------
> >   clk81                 159373438    +/-1562Hz
> >   a9_clk_div16           12000000    +/-1562Hz
> >   rtc_osc_clk_out           32813    +/-1562Hz
> >   hdmi_ch0_tmds         146398438    +/-1562Hz
> >   sar_adc                 1143750    +/-1562Hz
> >   sdhc_rx                94443750    +/-1562Hz
> >   sdhc_sd                94443750    +/-1562Hz
> >   pwm_d                 849992188    +/-1562Hz
> >   pwm_c                 849992188    +/-1562Hz
> >
> > real    0m0.173s
> > user    0m0.008s
> > sys     0m0.109s
> >
> > So there's also an improvement in accuracy. The only downside I'm
> > seeing is that it takes 75% extra time for the measurement. For me
> > this is irrelevant since we use this for debugging.
> >
> > [...]
> >> +       /*
> >> +        * HACK: The input clock signal path from gate (Controlled by MSR_RUN)
> >> +        * to internal sampling circuit in clk-measure has a propagation delay
> >> +        * requirement: 24 clock cycles must elapse after mux selection before
> >> +        * sampling.
> >> +        *
> >> +        * For a 30kHz measurement clock, this translates to an 800μs delay:
> >> +        * 800us = 24 / 30000Hz.
> >> +        */
> >> +       fsleep(800);
> > What is needed to make this not a HACK anymore? Is there a register
> > that we can poll for the number of clock cycles that have passed?
>
>
> The required delay duration is frequency-dependent on the measurement
> clock source. The current 800μs delay is calculated based on a
> minimum input clock frequency of 30kHz. At higher input frequencies,
> this delay could be proportionally reduced. Applying a uniform 800μs
> delay therefore appears overly conservative for general use cases.
>
>
> The IP currently lacks a status register to detect whether the input
> clock signal has successfully propagated to the internal measurement
> circuitry.
>
>
> The design of this IP has been maintained for many years. From a
> hardware design perspective, there is room for optimization in this
> signal propagation delay. Future IP updates may not require such a
> long delay.
Thanks for the detailed description. To me this doesn't seem like a
"hack" then, it's just something that's needed to interface with the
hardware correctly.
My suggestion is to replace the word "HACK" with "NOTE".

What do you think?


Best regards,
Martin