[PATCH 0/4] mmc: core: Add support for MMC power sequences

[Russell King - ARM Linux]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 03:29:54PM +0100, Ulf Hansson wrote:
> Regarding you concern, about me propagating the same design mistake as
> for the ->set_ios() callback, I am not sure I fully understand why you
> think that's the case?

Because of this:

mmc_pwrseq_power_up()- Invoked from mmc_power_up(), to power up.
mmc_pwrseq_power_on()- Invoked from mmc_power_up(), to power on.

This re-inforces the "power up, wait, power on" _power_ _sequence_
as part of the software design.

We know that _today_ there is hardware which does not work like that.
We know that we have host adapters which ignore the "power up" part,
because they deal with all the sequencing in hardware.

I'll refer to your new infrastructure as "pwrseq" and the existing
infrastructure as "power sequence".  (That alone shows what an
absurd situation this is - we have two things which have the same
name!)

Let's say we have a pwrseq handler which implements the power_up()
and power_on() callbacks.  It's written for use with a controller
which implements appropriate actions on set_ios() with POWER_UP
and POWER_ON states implemented.

So, what we have is:

pwrseq		power sequence	host state/action

power_up			no power supplied
		POWER_UP	host applies power to the card

power_on			host is supplying power to card
		POWER_ON	host applies clocks to the card

Now, for a more inteligent host, where the hardware takes care of
sequencing the application of power and clocks, we have this:

pwrseq		power sequence	host action

power_up			no power applied
		POWER_UP	host does nothing

power_on			no power applied
		POWER_ON	host applies power to the card, waits,
				and applies the clock

As we can see, the hardware state which the power_on() method of the
pwrseq is called is highly host dependent.  In the first case, power
has already been applied.  In the second case, power has not been
applied.

To have consistency, you need to /first/ solve the problem which I've
been pointing out, otherwise we're going to have these new pwrseq
callbacks being called with inconsistent, host specific power states
being applied to the card.

An alternative way to get consistency is to eliminate the pwrseq
"power_on" callback altogether; the "power_up" callback will always
be made before the host interface power sequence is started - and
that is about the only thing we can guarantee given the variability
in host interface designs.

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