summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/arm
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2013-05-03 09:13:19 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>2013-05-03 09:13:19 -0700
commit8546dc1d4b671480961c3eaf4c0c102ae6848340 (patch)
treec646079fb48811b22b742deb6bd2e907f9e6c3d4 /Documentation/arm
parent9992ba72327fa0d8bdc9fb624e80f5cce338a711 (diff)
parent33b9f582c5c1db515412cc7efff28f7d1779321f (diff)
downloadlinux-8546dc1d4b671480961c3eaf4c0c102ae6848340.tar.bz2
Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.linaro.org/people/rmk/linux-arm
Pull ARM updates from Russell King: "The major items included in here are: - MCPM, multi-cluster power management, part of the infrastructure required for ARMs big.LITTLE support. - A rework of the ARM KVM code to allow re-use by ARM64. - Error handling cleanups of the IS_ERR_OR_NULL() madness and fixes of that stuff for arch/arm - Preparatory patches for Cortex-M3 support from Uwe Kleine-König. There is also a set of three patches in here from Hugh/Catalin to address freeing of inappropriate page tables on LPAE. You already have these from akpm, but they were already part of my tree at the time he sent them, so unfortunately they'll end up with duplicate commits" * 'for-linus' of git://git.linaro.org/people/rmk/linux-arm: (77 commits) ARM: EXYNOS: remove unnecessary use of IS_ERR_VALUE() ARM: IMX: remove unnecessary use of IS_ERR_VALUE() ARM: OMAP: use consistent error checking ARM: cleanup: OMAP hwmod error checking ARM: 7709/1: mcpm: Add explicit AFLAGS to support v6/v7 multiplatform kernels ARM: 7700/2: Make cpu_init() notrace ARM: 7702/1: Set the page table freeing ceiling to TASK_SIZE ARM: 7701/1: mm: Allow arch code to control the user page table ceiling ARM: 7703/1: Disable preemption in broadcast_tlb*_a15_erratum() ARM: mcpm: provide an interface to set the SMP ops at run time ARM: mcpm: generic SMP secondary bringup and hotplug support ARM: mcpm_head.S: vlock-based first man election ARM: mcpm: Add baremetal voting mutexes ARM: mcpm: introduce helpers for platform coherency exit/setup ARM: mcpm: introduce the CPU/cluster power API ARM: multi-cluster PM: secondary kernel entry code ARM: cacheflush: add synchronization helpers for mixed cache state accesses ARM: cpu hotplug: remove majority of cache flushing from platforms ARM: smp: flush L1 cache in cpu_die() ARM: tegra: remove tegra specific cpu_disable() ...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/arm')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/arm/cluster-pm-race-avoidance.txt498
-rw-r--r--Documentation/arm/vlocks.txt211
2 files changed, 709 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/arm/cluster-pm-race-avoidance.txt b/Documentation/arm/cluster-pm-race-avoidance.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..750b6fc24af9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/arm/cluster-pm-race-avoidance.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,498 @@
+Cluster-wide Power-up/power-down race avoidance algorithm
+=========================================================
+
+This file documents the algorithm which is used to coordinate CPU and
+cluster setup and teardown operations and to manage hardware coherency
+controls safely.
+
+The section "Rationale" explains what the algorithm is for and why it is
+needed. "Basic model" explains general concepts using a simplified view
+of the system. The other sections explain the actual details of the
+algorithm in use.
+
+
+Rationale
+---------
+
+In a system containing multiple CPUs, it is desirable to have the
+ability to turn off individual CPUs when the system is idle, reducing
+power consumption and thermal dissipation.
+
+In a system containing multiple clusters of CPUs, it is also desirable
+to have the ability to turn off entire clusters.
+
+Turning entire clusters off and on is a risky business, because it
+involves performing potentially destructive operations affecting a group
+of independently running CPUs, while the OS continues to run. This
+means that we need some coordination in order to ensure that critical
+cluster-level operations are only performed when it is truly safe to do
+so.
+
+Simple locking may not be sufficient to solve this problem, because
+mechanisms like Linux spinlocks may rely on coherency mechanisms which
+are not immediately enabled when a cluster powers up. Since enabling or
+disabling those mechanisms may itself be a non-atomic operation (such as
+writing some hardware registers and invalidating large caches), other
+methods of coordination are required in order to guarantee safe
+power-down and power-up at the cluster level.
+
+The mechanism presented in this document describes a coherent memory
+based protocol for performing the needed coordination. It aims to be as
+lightweight as possible, while providing the required safety properties.
+
+
+Basic model
+-----------
+
+Each cluster and CPU is assigned a state, as follows:
+
+ DOWN
+ COMING_UP
+ UP
+ GOING_DOWN
+
+ +---------> UP ----------+
+ | v
+
+ COMING_UP GOING_DOWN
+
+ ^ |
+ +--------- DOWN <--------+
+
+
+DOWN: The CPU or cluster is not coherent, and is either powered off or
+ suspended, or is ready to be powered off or suspended.
+
+COMING_UP: The CPU or cluster has committed to moving to the UP state.
+ It may be part way through the process of initialisation and
+ enabling coherency.
+
+UP: The CPU or cluster is active and coherent at the hardware
+ level. A CPU in this state is not necessarily being used
+ actively by the kernel.
+
+GOING_DOWN: The CPU or cluster has committed to moving to the DOWN
+ state. It may be part way through the process of teardown and
+ coherency exit.
+
+
+Each CPU has one of these states assigned to it at any point in time.
+The CPU states are described in the "CPU state" section, below.
+
+Each cluster is also assigned a state, but it is necessary to split the
+state value into two parts (the "cluster" state and "inbound" state) and
+to introduce additional states in order to avoid races between different
+CPUs in the cluster simultaneously modifying the state. The cluster-
+level states are described in the "Cluster state" section.
+
+To help distinguish the CPU states from cluster states in this
+discussion, the state names are given a CPU_ prefix for the CPU states,
+and a CLUSTER_ or INBOUND_ prefix for the cluster states.
+
+
+CPU state
+---------
+
+In this algorithm, each individual core in a multi-core processor is
+referred to as a "CPU". CPUs are assumed to be single-threaded:
+therefore, a CPU can only be doing one thing at a single point in time.
+
+This means that CPUs fit the basic model closely.
+
+The algorithm defines the following states for each CPU in the system:
+
+ CPU_DOWN
+ CPU_COMING_UP
+ CPU_UP
+ CPU_GOING_DOWN
+
+ cluster setup and
+ CPU setup complete policy decision
+ +-----------> CPU_UP ------------+
+ | v
+
+ CPU_COMING_UP CPU_GOING_DOWN
+
+ ^ |
+ +----------- CPU_DOWN <----------+
+ policy decision CPU teardown complete
+ or hardware event
+
+
+The definitions of the four states correspond closely to the states of
+the basic model.
+
+Transitions between states occur as follows.
+
+A trigger event (spontaneous) means that the CPU can transition to the
+next state as a result of making local progress only, with no
+requirement for any external event to happen.
+
+
+CPU_DOWN:
+
+ A CPU reaches the CPU_DOWN state when it is ready for
+ power-down. On reaching this state, the CPU will typically
+ power itself down or suspend itself, via a WFI instruction or a
+ firmware call.
+
+ Next state: CPU_COMING_UP
+ Conditions: none
+
+ Trigger events:
+
+ a) an explicit hardware power-up operation, resulting
+ from a policy decision on another CPU;
+
+ b) a hardware event, such as an interrupt.
+
+
+CPU_COMING_UP:
+
+ A CPU cannot start participating in hardware coherency until the
+ cluster is set up and coherent. If the cluster is not ready,
+ then the CPU will wait in the CPU_COMING_UP state until the
+ cluster has been set up.
+
+ Next state: CPU_UP
+ Conditions: The CPU's parent cluster must be in CLUSTER_UP.
+ Trigger events: Transition of the parent cluster to CLUSTER_UP.
+
+ Refer to the "Cluster state" section for a description of the
+ CLUSTER_UP state.
+
+
+CPU_UP:
+ When a CPU reaches the CPU_UP state, it is safe for the CPU to
+ start participating in local coherency.
+
+ This is done by jumping to the kernel's CPU resume code.
+
+ Note that the definition of this state is slightly different
+ from the basic model definition: CPU_UP does not mean that the
+ CPU is coherent yet, but it does mean that it is safe to resume
+ the kernel. The kernel handles the rest of the resume
+ procedure, so the remaining steps are not visible as part of the
+ race avoidance algorithm.
+
+ The CPU remains in this state until an explicit policy decision
+ is made to shut down or suspend the CPU.
+
+ Next state: CPU_GOING_DOWN
+ Conditions: none
+ Trigger events: explicit policy decision
+
+
+CPU_GOING_DOWN:
+
+ While in this state, the CPU exits coherency, including any
+ operations required to achieve this (such as cleaning data
+ caches).
+
+ Next state: CPU_DOWN
+ Conditions: local CPU teardown complete
+ Trigger events: (spontaneous)
+
+
+Cluster state
+-------------
+
+A cluster is a group of connected CPUs with some common resources.
+Because a cluster contains multiple CPUs, it can be doing multiple
+things at the same time. This has some implications. In particular, a
+CPU can start up while another CPU is tearing the cluster down.
+
+In this discussion, the "outbound side" is the view of the cluster state
+as seen by a CPU tearing the cluster down. The "inbound side" is the
+view of the cluster state as seen by a CPU setting the CPU up.
+
+In order to enable safe coordination in such situations, it is important
+that a CPU which is setting up the cluster can advertise its state
+independently of the CPU which is tearing down the cluster. For this
+reason, the cluster state is split into two parts:
+
+ "cluster" state: The global state of the cluster; or the state
+ on the outbound side:
+
+ CLUSTER_DOWN
+ CLUSTER_UP
+ CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN
+
+ "inbound" state: The state of the cluster on the inbound side.
+
+ INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP
+ INBOUND_COMING_UP
+
+
+ The different pairings of these states results in six possible
+ states for the cluster as a whole:
+
+ CLUSTER_UP
+ +==========> INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP -------------+
+ # |
+ |
+ CLUSTER_UP <----+ |
+ INBOUND_COMING_UP | v
+
+ ^ CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN
+ # INBOUND_COMING_UP <=== INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP
+
+ CLUSTER_DOWN | |
+ INBOUND_COMING_UP <----+ |
+ |
+ ^ |
+ +=========== CLUSTER_DOWN <------------+
+ INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP
+
+ Transitions -----> can only be made by the outbound CPU, and
+ only involve changes to the "cluster" state.
+
+ Transitions ===##> can only be made by the inbound CPU, and only
+ involve changes to the "inbound" state, except where there is no
+ further transition possible on the outbound side (i.e., the
+ outbound CPU has put the cluster into the CLUSTER_DOWN state).
+
+ The race avoidance algorithm does not provide a way to determine
+ which exact CPUs within the cluster play these roles. This must
+ be decided in advance by some other means. Refer to the section
+ "Last man and first man selection" for more explanation.
+
+
+ CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP is the only state where the
+ cluster can actually be powered down.
+
+ The parallelism of the inbound and outbound CPUs is observed by
+ the existence of two different paths from CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN/
+ INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP (corresponding to GOING_DOWN in the basic
+ model) to CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_COMING_UP (corresponding to
+ COMING_UP in the basic model). The second path avoids cluster
+ teardown completely.
+
+ CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_COMING_UP is equivalent to UP in the basic
+ model. The final transition to CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP
+ is trivial and merely resets the state machine ready for the
+ next cycle.
+
+ Details of the allowable transitions follow.
+
+ The next state in each case is notated
+
+ <cluster state>/<inbound state> (<transitioner>)
+
+ where the <transitioner> is the side on which the transition
+ can occur; either the inbound or the outbound side.
+
+
+CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP:
+
+ Next state: CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_COMING_UP (inbound)
+ Conditions: none
+ Trigger events:
+
+ a) an explicit hardware power-up operation, resulting
+ from a policy decision on another CPU;
+
+ b) a hardware event, such as an interrupt.
+
+
+CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_COMING_UP:
+
+ In this state, an inbound CPU sets up the cluster, including
+ enabling of hardware coherency at the cluster level and any
+ other operations (such as cache invalidation) which are required
+ in order to achieve this.
+
+ The purpose of this state is to do sufficient cluster-level
+ setup to enable other CPUs in the cluster to enter coherency
+ safely.
+
+ Next state: CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_COMING_UP (inbound)
+ Conditions: cluster-level setup and hardware coherency complete
+ Trigger events: (spontaneous)
+
+
+CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_COMING_UP:
+
+ Cluster-level setup is complete and hardware coherency is
+ enabled for the cluster. Other CPUs in the cluster can safely
+ enter coherency.
+
+ This is a transient state, leading immediately to
+ CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP. All other CPUs on the cluster
+ should consider treat these two states as equivalent.
+
+ Next state: CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP (inbound)
+ Conditions: none
+ Trigger events: (spontaneous)
+
+
+CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP:
+
+ Cluster-level setup is complete and hardware coherency is
+ enabled for the cluster. Other CPUs in the cluster can safely
+ enter coherency.
+
+ The cluster will remain in this state until a policy decision is
+ made to power the cluster down.
+
+ Next state: CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP (outbound)
+ Conditions: none
+ Trigger events: policy decision to power down the cluster
+
+
+CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP:
+
+ An outbound CPU is tearing the cluster down. The selected CPU
+ must wait in this state until all CPUs in the cluster are in the
+ CPU_DOWN state.
+
+ When all CPUs are in the CPU_DOWN state, the cluster can be torn
+ down, for example by cleaning data caches and exiting
+ cluster-level coherency.
+
+ To avoid wasteful unnecessary teardown operations, the outbound
+ should check the inbound cluster state for asynchronous
+ transitions to INBOUND_COMING_UP. Alternatively, individual
+ CPUs can be checked for entry into CPU_COMING_UP or CPU_UP.
+
+
+ Next states:
+
+ CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_NOT_COMING_UP (outbound)
+ Conditions: cluster torn down and ready to power off
+ Trigger events: (spontaneous)
+
+ CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN/INBOUND_COMING_UP (inbound)
+ Conditions: none
+ Trigger events:
+
+ a) an explicit hardware power-up operation,
+ resulting from a policy decision on another
+ CPU;
+
+ b) a hardware event, such as an interrupt.
+
+
+CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN/INBOUND_COMING_UP:
+
+ The cluster is (or was) being torn down, but another CPU has
+ come online in the meantime and is trying to set up the cluster
+ again.
+
+ If the outbound CPU observes this state, it has two choices:
+
+ a) back out of teardown, restoring the cluster to the
+ CLUSTER_UP state;
+
+ b) finish tearing the cluster down and put the cluster
+ in the CLUSTER_DOWN state; the inbound CPU will
+ set up the cluster again from there.
+
+ Choice (a) permits the removal of some latency by avoiding
+ unnecessary teardown and setup operations in situations where
+ the cluster is not really going to be powered down.
+
+
+ Next states:
+
+ CLUSTER_UP/INBOUND_COMING_UP (outbound)
+ Conditions: cluster-level setup and hardware
+ coherency complete
+ Trigger events: (spontaneous)
+
+ CLUSTER_DOWN/INBOUND_COMING_UP (outbound)
+ Conditions: cluster torn down and ready to power off
+ Trigger events: (spontaneous)
+
+
+Last man and First man selection
+--------------------------------
+
+The CPU which performs cluster tear-down operations on the outbound side
+is commonly referred to as the "last man".
+
+The CPU which performs cluster setup on the inbound side is commonly
+referred to as the "first man".
+
+The race avoidance algorithm documented above does not provide a
+mechanism to choose which CPUs should play these roles.
+
+
+Last man:
+
+When shutting down the cluster, all the CPUs involved are initially
+executing Linux and hence coherent. Therefore, ordinary spinlocks can
+be used to select a last man safely, before the CPUs become
+non-coherent.
+
+
+First man:
+
+Because CPUs may power up asynchronously in response to external wake-up
+events, a dynamic mechanism is needed to make sure that only one CPU
+attempts to play the first man role and do the cluster-level
+initialisation: any other CPUs must wait for this to complete before
+proceeding.
+
+Cluster-level initialisation may involve actions such as configuring
+coherency controls in the bus fabric.
+
+The current implementation in mcpm_head.S uses a separate mutual exclusion
+mechanism to do this arbitration. This mechanism is documented in
+detail in vlocks.txt.
+
+
+Features and Limitations
+------------------------
+
+Implementation:
+
+ The current ARM-based implementation is split between
+ arch/arm/common/mcpm_head.S (low-level inbound CPU operations) and
+ arch/arm/common/mcpm_entry.c (everything else):
+
+ __mcpm_cpu_going_down() signals the transition of a CPU to the
+ CPU_GOING_DOWN state.
+
+ __mcpm_cpu_down() signals the transition of a CPU to the CPU_DOWN
+ state.
+
+ A CPU transitions to CPU_COMING_UP and then to CPU_UP via the
+ low-level power-up code in mcpm_head.S. This could
+ involve CPU-specific setup code, but in the current
+ implementation it does not.
+
+ __mcpm_outbound_enter_critical() and __mcpm_outbound_leave_critical()
+ handle transitions from CLUSTER_UP to CLUSTER_GOING_DOWN
+ and from there to CLUSTER_DOWN or back to CLUSTER_UP (in
+ the case of an aborted cluster power-down).
+
+ These functions are more complex than the __mcpm_cpu_*()
+ functions due to the extra inter-CPU coordination which
+ is needed for safe transitions at the cluster level.
+
+ A cluster transitions from CLUSTER_DOWN back to CLUSTER_UP via
+ the low-level power-up code in mcpm_head.S. This
+ typically involves platform-specific setup code,
+ provided by the platform-specific power_up_setup
+ function registered via mcpm_sync_init.
+
+Deep topologies:
+
+ As currently described and implemented, the algorithm does not
+ support CPU topologies involving more than two levels (i.e.,
+ clusters of clusters are not supported). The algorithm could be
+ extended by replicating the cluster-level states for the
+ additional topological levels, and modifying the transition
+ rules for the intermediate (non-outermost) cluster levels.
+
+
+Colophon
+--------
+
+Originally created and documented by Dave Martin for Linaro Limited, in
+collaboration with Nicolas Pitre and Achin Gupta.
+
+Copyright (C) 2012-2013 Linaro Limited
+Distributed under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public
+License, as defined in linux/COPYING.
diff --git a/Documentation/arm/vlocks.txt b/Documentation/arm/vlocks.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..415960a9bab0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/arm/vlocks.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,211 @@
+vlocks for Bare-Metal Mutual Exclusion
+======================================
+
+Voting Locks, or "vlocks" provide a simple low-level mutual exclusion
+mechanism, with reasonable but minimal requirements on the memory
+system.
+
+These are intended to be used to coordinate critical activity among CPUs
+which are otherwise non-coherent, in situations where the hardware
+provides no other mechanism to support this and ordinary spinlocks
+cannot be used.
+
+
+vlocks make use of the atomicity provided by the memory system for
+writes to a single memory location. To arbitrate, every CPU "votes for
+itself", by storing a unique number to a common memory location. The
+final value seen in that memory location when all the votes have been
+cast identifies the winner.
+
+In order to make sure that the election produces an unambiguous result
+in finite time, a CPU will only enter the election in the first place if
+no winner has been chosen and the election does not appear to have
+started yet.
+
+
+Algorithm
+---------
+
+The easiest way to explain the vlocks algorithm is with some pseudo-code:
+
+
+ int currently_voting[NR_CPUS] = { 0, };
+ int last_vote = -1; /* no votes yet */
+
+ bool vlock_trylock(int this_cpu)
+ {
+ /* signal our desire to vote */
+ currently_voting[this_cpu] = 1;
+ if (last_vote != -1) {
+ /* someone already volunteered himself */
+ currently_voting[this_cpu] = 0;
+ return false; /* not ourself */
+ }
+
+ /* let's suggest ourself */
+ last_vote = this_cpu;
+ currently_voting[this_cpu] = 0;
+
+ /* then wait until everyone else is done voting */
+ for_each_cpu(i) {
+ while (currently_voting[i] != 0)
+ /* wait */;
+ }
+
+ /* result */
+ if (last_vote == this_cpu)
+ return true; /* we won */
+ return false;
+ }
+
+ bool vlock_unlock(void)
+ {
+ last_vote = -1;
+ }
+
+
+The currently_voting[] array provides a way for the CPUs to determine
+whether an election is in progress, and plays a role analogous to the
+"entering" array in Lamport's bakery algorithm [1].
+
+However, once the election has started, the underlying memory system
+atomicity is used to pick the winner. This avoids the need for a static
+priority rule to act as a tie-breaker, or any counters which could
+overflow.
+
+As long as the last_vote variable is globally visible to all CPUs, it
+will contain only one value that won't change once every CPU has cleared
+its currently_voting flag.
+
+
+Features and limitations
+------------------------
+
+ * vlocks are not intended to be fair. In the contended case, it is the
+ _last_ CPU which attempts to get the lock which will be most likely
+ to win.
+
+ vlocks are therefore best suited to situations where it is necessary
+ to pick a unique winner, but it does not matter which CPU actually
+ wins.
+
+ * Like other similar mechanisms, vlocks will not scale well to a large
+ number of CPUs.
+
+ vlocks can be cascaded in a voting hierarchy to permit better scaling
+ if necessary, as in the following hypothetical example for 4096 CPUs:
+
+ /* first level: local election */
+ my_town = towns[(this_cpu >> 4) & 0xf];
+ I_won = vlock_trylock(my_town, this_cpu & 0xf);
+ if (I_won) {
+ /* we won the town election, let's go for the state */
+ my_state = states[(this_cpu >> 8) & 0xf];
+ I_won = vlock_lock(my_state, this_cpu & 0xf));
+ if (I_won) {
+ /* and so on */
+ I_won = vlock_lock(the_whole_country, this_cpu & 0xf];
+ if (I_won) {
+ /* ... */
+ }
+ vlock_unlock(the_whole_country);
+ }
+ vlock_unlock(my_state);
+ }
+ vlock_unlock(my_town);
+
+
+ARM implementation
+------------------
+
+The current ARM implementation [2] contains some optimisations beyond
+the basic algorithm:
+
+ * By packing the members of the currently_voting array close together,
+ we can read the whole array in one transaction (providing the number
+ of CPUs potentially contending the lock is small enough). This
+ reduces the number of round-trips required to external memory.
+
+ In the ARM implementation, this means that we can use a single load
+ and comparison:
+
+ LDR Rt, [Rn]
+ CMP Rt, #0
+
+ ...in place of code equivalent to:
+
+ LDRB Rt, [Rn]
+ CMP Rt, #0
+ LDRBEQ Rt, [Rn, #1]
+ CMPEQ Rt, #0
+ LDRBEQ Rt, [Rn, #2]
+ CMPEQ Rt, #0
+ LDRBEQ Rt, [Rn, #3]
+ CMPEQ Rt, #0
+
+ This cuts down on the fast-path latency, as well as potentially
+ reducing bus contention in contended cases.
+
+ The optimisation relies on the fact that the ARM memory system
+ guarantees coherency between overlapping memory accesses of
+ different sizes, similarly to many other architectures. Note that
+ we do not care which element of currently_voting appears in which
+ bits of Rt, so there is no need to worry about endianness in this
+ optimisation.
+
+ If there are too many CPUs to read the currently_voting array in
+ one transaction then multiple transations are still required. The
+ implementation uses a simple loop of word-sized loads for this
+ case. The number of transactions is still fewer than would be
+ required if bytes were loaded individually.
+
+
+ In principle, we could aggregate further by using LDRD or LDM, but
+ to keep the code simple this was not attempted in the initial
+ implementation.
+
+
+ * vlocks are currently only used to coordinate between CPUs which are
+ unable to enable their caches yet. This means that the
+ implementation removes many of the barriers which would be required
+ when executing the algorithm in cached memory.
+
+ packing of the currently_voting array does not work with cached
+ memory unless all CPUs contending the lock are cache-coherent, due
+ to cache writebacks from one CPU clobbering values written by other
+ CPUs. (Though if all the CPUs are cache-coherent, you should be
+ probably be using proper spinlocks instead anyway).
+
+
+ * The "no votes yet" value used for the last_vote variable is 0 (not
+ -1 as in the pseudocode). This allows statically-allocated vlocks
+ to be implicitly initialised to an unlocked state simply by putting
+ them in .bss.
+
+ An offset is added to each CPU's ID for the purpose of setting this
+ variable, so that no CPU uses the value 0 for its ID.
+
+
+Colophon
+--------
+
+Originally created and documented by Dave Martin for Linaro Limited, for
+use in ARM-based big.LITTLE platforms, with review and input gratefully
+received from Nicolas Pitre and Achin Gupta. Thanks to Nicolas for
+grabbing most of this text out of the relevant mail thread and writing
+up the pseudocode.
+
+Copyright (C) 2012-2013 Linaro Limited
+Distributed under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public
+License, as defined in linux/COPYING.
+
+
+References
+----------
+
+[1] Lamport, L. "A New Solution of Dijkstra's Concurrent Programming
+ Problem", Communications of the ACM 17, 8 (August 1974), 453-455.
+
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamport%27s_bakery_algorithm
+
+[2] linux/arch/arm/common/vlock.S, www.kernel.org.