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|
PINCTRL (PIN CONTROL) subsystem
This document outlines the pin control subsystem in Linux
This subsystem deals with:
- Enumerating and naming controllable pins
- Multiplexing of pins, pads, fingers (etc) see below for details
- Configuration of pins, pads, fingers (etc), such as software-controlled
biasing and driving mode specific pins, such as pull-up/down, open drain,
load capacitance etc.
Top-level interface
===================
Definition of PIN CONTROLLER:
- A pin controller is a piece of hardware, usually a set of registers, that
can control PINs. It may be able to multiplex, bias, set load capacitance,
set drive strength etc for individual pins or groups of pins.
Definition of PIN:
- PINS are equal to pads, fingers, balls or whatever packaging input or
output line you want to control and these are denoted by unsigned integers
in the range 0..maxpin. This numberspace is local to each PIN CONTROLLER, so
there may be several such number spaces in a system. This pin space may
be sparse - i.e. there may be gaps in the space with numbers where no
pin exists.
When a PIN CONTROLLER is instantiated, it will register a descriptor to the
pin control framework, and this descriptor contains an array of pin descriptors
describing the pins handled by this specific pin controller.
Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath:
A B C D E F G H
8 o o o o o o o o
7 o o o o o o o o
6 o o o o o o o o
5 o o o o o o o o
4 o o o o o o o o
3 o o o o o o o o
2 o o o o o o o o
1 o o o o o o o o
To register a pin controller and name all the pins on this package we can do
this in our driver:
#include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
const struct pinctrl_pin_desc foo_pins[] = {
PINCTRL_PIN(0, "A8"),
PINCTRL_PIN(1, "B8"),
PINCTRL_PIN(2, "C8"),
...
PINCTRL_PIN(61, "F1"),
PINCTRL_PIN(62, "G1"),
PINCTRL_PIN(63, "H1"),
};
static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
.name = "foo",
.pins = foo_pins,
.npins = ARRAY_SIZE(foo_pins),
.maxpin = 63,
.owner = THIS_MODULE,
};
int __init foo_probe(void)
{
struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
pctl = pinctrl_register(&foo_desc, <PARENT>, NULL);
if (IS_ERR(pctl))
pr_err("could not register foo pin driver\n");
}
To enable the pinctrl subsystem and the subgroups for PINMUX and PINCONF and
selected drivers, you need to select them from your machine's Kconfig entry,
since these are so tightly integrated with the machines they are used on.
See for example arch/arm/mach-u300/Kconfig for an example.
Pins usually have fancier names than this. You can find these in the dataheet
for your chip. Notice that the core pinctrl.h file provides a fancy macro
called PINCTRL_PIN() to create the struct entries. As you can see I enumerated
the pins from 0 in the upper left corner to 63 in the lower right corner.
This enumeration was arbitrarily chosen, in practice you need to think
through your numbering system so that it matches the layout of registers
and such things in your driver, or the code may become complicated. You must
also consider matching of offsets to the GPIO ranges that may be handled by
the pin controller.
For a padring with 467 pads, as opposed to actual pins, I used an enumeration
like this, walking around the edge of the chip, which seems to be industry
standard too (all these pads had names, too):
0 ..... 104
466 105
. .
. .
358 224
357 .... 225
Pin groups
==========
Many controllers need to deal with groups of pins, so the pin controller
subsystem has a mechanism for enumerating groups of pins and retrieving the
actual enumerated pins that are part of a certain group.
For example, say that we have a group of pins dealing with an SPI interface
on { 0, 8, 16, 24 }, and a group of pins dealing with an I2C interface on pins
on { 24, 25 }.
These two groups are presented to the pin control subsystem by implementing
some generic pinctrl_ops like this:
#include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
struct foo_group {
const char *name;
const unsigned int *pins;
const unsigned num_pins;
};
static const unsigned int spi0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
static const unsigned int i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
{
.name = "spi0_grp",
.pins = spi0_pins,
.num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_pins),
},
{
.name = "i2c0_grp",
.pins = i2c0_pins,
.num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
},
};
static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
{
return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
}
static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
unsigned selector)
{
return foo_groups[selector].name;
}
static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
unsigned ** const pins,
unsigned * const num_pins)
{
*pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
*num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
return 0;
}
static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
.get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
.get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
.get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
};
static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
...
.pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
};
The pin control subsystem will call the .get_groups_count() function to
determine total number of legal selectors, then it will call the other functions
to retrieve the name and pins of the group. Maintaining the data structure of
the groups is up to the driver, this is just a simple example - in practice you
may need more entries in your group structure, for example specific register
ranges associated with each group and so on.
Pin configuration
=================
Pins can sometimes be software-configured in an various ways, mostly related
to their electronic properties when used as inputs or outputs. For example you
may be able to make an output pin high impedance, or "tristate" meaning it is
effectively disconnected. You may be able to connect an input pin to VDD or GND
using a certain resistor value - pull up and pull down - so that the pin has a
stable value when nothing is driving the rail it is connected to, or when it's
unconnected.
Pin configuration can be programmed either using the explicit APIs described
immediately below, or by adding configuration entries into the mapping table;
see section "Board/machine configuration" below.
For example, a platform may do the following to pull up a pin to VDD:
#include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
ret = pin_config_set("foo-dev", "FOO_GPIO_PIN", PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP);
The format and meaning of the configuration parameter, PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP
above, is entirely defined by the pin controller driver.
The pin configuration driver implements callbacks for changing pin
configuration in the pin controller ops like this:
#include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
#include <linux/pinctrl/pinconf.h>
#include "platform_x_pindefs.h"
static int foo_pin_config_get(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
unsigned offset,
unsigned long *config)
{
struct my_conftype conf;
... Find setting for pin @ offset ...
*config = (unsigned long) conf;
}
static int foo_pin_config_set(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
unsigned offset,
unsigned long config)
{
struct my_conftype *conf = (struct my_conftype *) config;
switch (conf) {
case PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP:
...
}
}
}
static int foo_pin_config_group_get (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
unsigned selector,
unsigned long *config)
{
...
}
static int foo_pin_config_group_set (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
unsigned selector,
unsigned long config)
{
...
}
static struct pinconf_ops foo_pconf_ops = {
.pin_config_get = foo_pin_config_get,
.pin_config_set = foo_pin_config_set,
.pin_config_group_get = foo_pin_config_group_get,
.pin_config_group_set = foo_pin_config_group_set,
};
/* Pin config operations are handled by some pin controller */
static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
...
.confops = &foo_pconf_ops,
};
Since some controllers have special logic for handling entire groups of pins
they can exploit the special whole-group pin control function. The
pin_config_group_set() callback is allowed to return the error code -EAGAIN,
for groups it does not want to handle, or if it just wants to do some
group-level handling and then fall through to iterate over all pins, in which
case each individual pin will be treated by separate pin_config_set() calls as
well.
Interaction with the GPIO subsystem
===================================
The GPIO drivers may want to perform operations of various types on the same
physical pins that are also registered as pin controller pins.
Since the pin controller subsystem have its pinspace local to the pin
controller we need a mapping so that the pin control subsystem can figure out
which pin controller handles control of a certain GPIO pin. Since a single
pin controller may be muxing several GPIO ranges (typically SoCs that have
one set of pins but internally several GPIO silicon blocks, each modeled as
a struct gpio_chip) any number of GPIO ranges can be added to a pin controller
instance like this:
struct gpio_chip chip_a;
struct gpio_chip chip_b;
static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_a = {
.name = "chip a",
.id = 0,
.base = 32,
.pin_base = 32,
.npins = 16,
.gc = &chip_a;
};
static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_b = {
.name = "chip b",
.id = 0,
.base = 48,
.pin_base = 64,
.npins = 8,
.gc = &chip_b;
};
{
struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
...
pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_a);
pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_b);
}
So this complex system has one pin controller handling two different
GPIO chips. "chip a" has 16 pins and "chip b" has 8 pins. The "chip a" and
"chip b" have different .pin_base, which means a start pin number of the
GPIO range.
The GPIO range of "chip a" starts from the GPIO base of 32 and actual
pin range also starts from 32. However "chip b" has different starting
offset for the GPIO range and pin range. The GPIO range of "chip b" starts
from GPIO number 48, while the pin range of "chip b" starts from 64.
We can convert a gpio number to actual pin number using this "pin_base".
They are mapped in the global GPIO pin space at:
chip a:
- GPIO range : [32 .. 47]
- pin range : [32 .. 47]
chip b:
- GPIO range : [48 .. 55]
- pin range : [64 .. 71]
When GPIO-specific functions in the pin control subsystem are called, these
ranges will be used to look up the appropriate pin controller by inspecting
and matching the pin to the pin ranges across all controllers. When a
pin controller handling the matching range is found, GPIO-specific functions
will be called on that specific pin controller.
For all functionalities dealing with pin biasing, pin muxing etc, the pin
controller subsystem will subtract the range's .base offset from the passed
in gpio number, and add the ranges's .pin_base offset to retrive a pin number.
After that, the subsystem passes it on to the pin control driver, so the driver
will get an pin number into its handled number range. Further it is also passed
the range ID value, so that the pin controller knows which range it should
deal with.
PINMUX interfaces
=================
These calls use the pinmux_* naming prefix. No other calls should use that
prefix.
What is pinmuxing?
==================
PINMUX, also known as padmux, ballmux, alternate functions or mission modes
is a way for chip vendors producing some kind of electrical packages to use
a certain physical pin (ball, pad, finger, etc) for multiple mutually exclusive
functions, depending on the application. By "application" in this context
we usually mean a way of soldering or wiring the package into an electronic
system, even though the framework makes it possible to also change the function
at runtime.
Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath:
A B C D E F G H
+---+
8 | o | o o o o o o o
| |
7 | o | o o o o o o o
| |
6 | o | o o o o o o o
+---+---+
5 | o | o | o o o o o o
+---+---+ +---+
4 o o o o o o | o | o
| |
3 o o o o o o | o | o
| |
2 o o o o o o | o | o
+-------+-------+-------+---+---+
1 | o o | o o | o o | o | o |
+-------+-------+-------+---+---+
This is not tetris. The game to think of is chess. Not all PGA/BGA packages
are chessboard-like, big ones have "holes" in some arrangement according to
different design patterns, but we're using this as a simple example. Of the
pins you see some will be taken by things like a few VCC and GND to feed power
to the chip, and quite a few will be taken by large ports like an external
memory interface. The remaining pins will often be subject to pin multiplexing.
The example 8x8 PGA package above will have pin numbers 0 thru 63 assigned to
its physical pins. It will name the pins { A1, A2, A3 ... H6, H7, H8 } using
pinctrl_register_pins() and a suitable data set as shown earlier.
In this 8x8 BGA package the pins { A8, A7, A6, A5 } can be used as an SPI port
(these are four pins: CLK, RXD, TXD, FRM). In that case, pin B5 can be used as
some general-purpose GPIO pin. However, in another setting, pins { A5, B5 } can
be used as an I2C port (these are just two pins: SCL, SDA). Needless to say,
we cannot use the SPI port and I2C port at the same time. However in the inside
of the package the silicon performing the SPI logic can alternatively be routed
out on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 }.
On the botton row at { A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, H1 } we have something
special - it's an external MMC bus that can be 2, 4 or 8 bits wide, and it will
consume 2, 4 or 8 pins respectively, so either { A1, B1 } are taken or
{ A1, B1, C1, D1 } or all of them. If we use all 8 bits, we cannot use the SPI
port on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 } of course.
This way the silicon blocks present inside the chip can be multiplexed "muxed"
out on different pin ranges. Often contemporary SoC (systems on chip) will
contain several I2C, SPI, SDIO/MMC, etc silicon blocks that can be routed to
different pins by pinmux settings.
Since general-purpose I/O pins (GPIO) are typically always in shortage, it is
common to be able to use almost any pin as a GPIO pin if it is not currently
in use by some other I/O port.
Pinmux conventions
==================
The purpose of the pinmux functionality in the pin controller subsystem is to
abstract and provide pinmux settings to the devices you choose to instantiate
in your machine configuration. It is inspired by the clk, GPIO and regulator
subsystems, so devices will request their mux setting, but it's also possible
to request a single pin for e.g. GPIO.
Definitions:
- FUNCTIONS can be switched in and out by a driver residing with the pin
control subsystem in the drivers/pinctrl/* directory of the kernel. The
pin control driver knows the possible functions. In the example above you can
identify three pinmux functions, one for spi, one for i2c and one for mmc.
- FUNCTIONS are assumed to be enumerable from zero in a one-dimensional array.
In this case the array could be something like: { spi0, i2c0, mmc0 }
for the three available functions.
- FUNCTIONS have PIN GROUPS as defined on the generic level - so a certain
function is *always* associated with a certain set of pin groups, could
be just a single one, but could also be many. In the example above the
function i2c is associated with the pins { A5, B5 }, enumerated as
{ 24, 25 } in the controller pin space.
The Function spi is associated with pin groups { A8, A7, A6, A5 }
and { G4, G3, G2, G1 }, which are enumerated as { 0, 8, 16, 24 } and
{ 38, 46, 54, 62 } respectively.
Group names must be unique per pin controller, no two groups on the same
controller may have the same name.
- The combination of a FUNCTION and a PIN GROUP determine a certain function
for a certain set of pins. The knowledge of the functions and pin groups
and their machine-specific particulars are kept inside the pinmux driver,
from the outside only the enumerators are known, and the driver core can:
- Request the name of a function with a certain selector (>= 0)
- A list of groups associated with a certain function
- Request that a certain group in that list to be activated for a certain
function
As already described above, pin groups are in turn self-descriptive, so
the core will retrieve the actual pin range in a certain group from the
driver.
- FUNCTIONS and GROUPS on a certain PIN CONTROLLER are MAPPED to a certain
device by the board file, device tree or similar machine setup configuration
mechanism, similar to how regulators are connected to devices, usually by
name. Defining a pin controller, function and group thus uniquely identify
the set of pins to be used by a certain device. (If only one possible group
of pins is available for the function, no group name need to be supplied -
the core will simply select the first and only group available.)
In the example case we can define that this particular machine shall
use device spi0 with pinmux function fspi0 group gspi0 and i2c0 on function
fi2c0 group gi2c0, on the primary pin
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