Thread (1 message) 1 message, 1 author, 2013-12-07

[PATCH] ARM: cpu: Document and tweak clock-frequency property

From: Rob Herring <hidden>
Date: 2013-12-07 18:36:35
Also in: linux-devicetree

On 12/06/2013 05:57 AM, Mark Brown wrote:
quoted hunk
From: Mark Brown <redacted>

The ARMv7 topology code uses the ePAPR specified mandatory clock-frequency
property to determine the relative performances of the CPUs along with the
CPU type. However with FDT we don't update to take account of the current
speed and if the cores are not running at full speed on boot then a device
tree which is accurate on boot can provide incorrect information about the
relative performances of the cores.

Document the current usage both to override ePAPR and to make the binding
within the kernel more complete. Ideally the kernel would use information
from the CPU frequency scaling drivers here but they may in turn consider
this property and such changes are likely to be part of the energy aware
scheduling work so not immediately available.

Signed-off-by: Mark Brown <redacted>
---
 Documentation/devicetree/bindings/arm/cpus.txt | 9 +++++++++
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/arm/cpus.txt b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/arm/cpus.txt
index 91304353eea4..e3726f6bca92 100644
--- a/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/arm/cpus.txt
+++ b/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/arm/cpus.txt
@@ -191,6 +191,15 @@ nodes to be present and contain the properties described below.
 			  property identifying a 64-bit zero-initialised
 			  memory location.
 
+	- clock-frequency
+		Usage: required
This breaks compatibility. It may be required for a feature in the
kernel to work, but should not be required in general. Perhaps we need
"optional/recommended" or "optional/required for new designs". Or we
could say required only with heterogeneous cores.
+		Value type: <u32> or <u64>
How do I determine the size? I think generally this property which is
used in multiple bindings is always u32. Of course, that won't work for
our 5GHz parts next year.
+		Definition:
+			This is specified in ePAPR as the current clock
+			frequency of the CPU.  When used with these
+			extensions it should reflect the maximum clock
+			frequency for the CPU.
What does extensions mean? cpu topology nodes?

It is useful to have a standard way to determine the current cpu
frequency. I've been asked for this several times on highbank. This
could be cpufreq, but there is not always a driver loaded. lshw already
has support for reading the frequency using this property. So I'm not
real sure deviating from the ePAPR is a good idea.

If a cpu only supports 1 frequency, then clock-frequency will always
reflect the current and max freq. If a cpu supports multiple
frequencies, then it should have an OPP table with those frequencies. We
should then get max frequency from the OPP table rather than
clock-frequency. It is clear that clock-frequency is insufficient to
describe everything we need.

Rob
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