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-DMAengine controller documentation
-==================================
-
-Hardware Introduction
-+++++++++++++++++++++
-
-Most of the Slave DMA controllers have the same general principles of
-operations.
-
-They have a given number of channels to use for the DMA transfers, and
-a given number of requests lines.
-
-Requests and channels are pretty much orthogonal. Channels can be used
-to serve several to any requests. To simplify, channels are the
-entities that will be doing the copy, and requests what endpoints are
-involved.
-
-The request lines actually correspond to physical lines going from the
-DMA-eligible devices to the controller itself. Whenever the device
-will want to start a transfer, it will assert a DMA request (DRQ) by
-asserting that request line.
-
-A very simple DMA controller would only take into account a single
-parameter: the transfer size. At each clock cycle, it would transfer a
-byte of data from one buffer to another, until the transfer size has
-been reached.
-
-That wouldn't work well in the real world, since slave devices might
-require a specific number of bits to be transferred in a single
-cycle. For example, we may want to transfer as much data as the
-physical bus allows to maximize performances when doing a simple
-memory copy operation, but our audio device could have a narrower FIFO
-that requires data to be written exactly 16 or 24 bits at a time. This
-is why most if not all of the DMA controllers can adjust this, using a
-parameter called the transfer width.
-
-Moreover, some DMA controllers, whenever the RAM is used as a source
-or destination, can group the reads or writes in memory into a buffer,
-so instead of having a lot of small memory accesses, which is not
-really efficient, you'll get several bigger transfers. This is done
-using a parameter called the burst size, that defines how many single
-reads/writes it's allowed to do without the controller splitting the
-transfer into smaller sub-transfers.
-
-Our theoretical DMA controller would then only be able to do transfers
-that involve a single contiguous block of data. However, some of the
-transfers we usually have are not, and want to copy data from
-non-contiguous buffers to a contiguous buffer, which is called
-scatter-gather.
-
-DMAEngine, at least for mem2dev transfers, require support for
-scatter-gather. So we're left with two cases here: either we have a
-quite simple DMA controller that doesn't support it, and we'll have to
-implement it in software, or we have a more advanced DMA controller,
-that implements in hardware scatter-gather.
-
-The latter are usually programmed using a collection of chunks to
-transfer, and whenever the transfer is started, the controller will go
-over that collection, doing whatever we programmed there.
-
-This collection is usually either a table or a linked list. You will
-then push either the address of the table and its number of elements,
-or the first item of the list to one channel of the DMA controller,
-and whenever a DRQ will be asserted, it will go through the collection
-to know where to fetch the data from.
-
-Either way, the format of this collection is completely dependent on
-your hardware. Each DMA controller will require a different structure,
-but all of them will require, for every chunk, at least the source and
-destination addresses, whether it should increment these addresses or
-not and the three parameters we saw earlier: the burst size, the
-transfer width and the transfer size.
-
-The one last thing is that usually, slave devices won't issue DRQ by
-default, and you have to enable this in your slave device driver first
-whenever you're willing to use DMA.
-
-These were just the general memory-to-memory (also called mem2mem) or
-memory-to-device (mem2dev) kind of transfers. Most devices often
-support other kind of transfers or memory operations that dmaengine
-support and will be detailed later in this document.
-
-DMA Support in Linux
-++++++++++++++++++++
-
-Historically, DMA controller drivers have been implemented using the
-async TX API, to offload operations such as memory copy, XOR,
-cryptography, etc., basically any memory to memory operation.
-
-Over time, the need for memory to device transfers arose, and
-dmaengine was extended. Nowadays, the async TX API is written as a
-layer on top of dmaengine, and acts as a client. Still, dmaengine
-accommodates that API in some cases, and made some design choices to
-ensure that it stayed compatible.
-
-For more information on the Async TX API, please look the relevant
-documentation file in Documentation/crypto/async-tx-api.txt.
-
-DMAEngine Registration
-++++++++++++++++++++++
-
-struct dma_device Initialization
---------------------------------
-
-Just like any other kernel framework, the whole DMAEngine registration
-relies on the driver filling a structure and registering against the
-framework. In our case, that structure is dma_device.
-
-The first thing you need to do in your driver is to allocate this
-structure. Any of the usual memory allocators will do, but you'll also
-need to initialize a few fields in there:
-
- * channels: should be initialized as a list using the
- INIT_LIST_HEAD macro for example
-
- * src_addr_widths:
- - should contain a bitmask of the supported source transfer width
-
- * dst_addr_widths:
- - should contain a bitmask of the supported destination transfer
- width
-
- * directions:
- - should contain a bitmask of the supported slave directions
- (i.e. excluding mem2mem transfers)
-
- * residue_granularity:
- - Granularity of the transfer residue reported to dma_set_residue.
- - This can be either:
- + Descriptor
- -> Your device doesn't support any kind of residue
- reporting. The framework will only know that a particular
- transaction descriptor is done.
- + Segment
- -> Your device is able to report which chunks have been
- transferred
- + Burst
- -> Your device is able to report which burst have been
- transferred
-
- * dev: should hold the pointer to the struct device associated
- to your current driver instance.
-
-Supported transaction types
----------------------------
-
-The next thing you need is to set which transaction types your device
-(and driver) supports.
-
-Our dma_device structure has a field called cap_mask that holds the
-various types of transaction supported, and you need to modify this
-mask using the dma_cap_set function, with various flags depending on
-transaction types you support as an argument.
-
-All those capabilities are defined in the dma_transaction_type enum,
-in include/linux/dmaengine.h
-
-Currently, the types available are:
- * DMA_MEMCPY
- - The device is able to do memory to memory copies
-
- * DMA_XOR
- - The device is able to perform XOR operations on memory areas
- - Used to accelerate XOR intensive tasks, such as RAID5
-
- * DMA_XOR_VAL
- - The device is able to perform parity check using the XOR
- algorithm against a memory buffer.
-
- * DMA_PQ
- - The device is able to perform RAID6 P+Q computations, P being a
- simple XOR, and Q being a Reed-Solomon algorithm.
-
- * DMA_PQ_VAL
- - The device is able to perform parity check using RAID6 P+Q
- algorithm against a memory buffer.
-
- * DMA_INTERRUPT
- - The device is able to trigger a dummy transfer that will
- generate periodic interrupts
- - Used by the client drivers to register a callback that will be
- called on a regular basis through the DMA controller interrupt
-
- * DMA_PRIVATE
- - The devices only supports slave transfers, and as such isn't
- available for async transfers.
-
- * DMA_ASYNC_TX
- - Must not be set by the device, and will be set by the framework
- if needed
- - /* TODO: What is it about? */
-
- * DMA_SLAVE
- - The device can handle device to memory transfers, including
- scatter-gather transfers.
- - While in the mem2mem case we were having two distinct types to
- deal with a single chunk to copy or a collection of them, here,
- we just have a single transaction type that is supposed to
- handle both.
- - If you want to transfer a single contiguous memory buffer,
- simply build a scatter list with only one item.
-
- * DMA_CYCLIC
- - The device can handle cyclic transfers.
- - A cyclic transfer is a transfer where the chunk collection will
- loop over itself, with the last item pointing to the first.
- - It's usually used for audio transfers, where you want to operate
- on a single ring buffer that you will fill with your audio data.
-
- * DMA_INTERLEAVE
- - The device supports interleaved transfer.
- - These transfers can transfer data from a non-contiguous buffer
- to a non-contiguous buffer, opposed to DMA_SLAVE that can
- transfer data from a non-contiguous data set to a continuous
- destination buffer.
- - It's usually used for 2d content transfers, in which case you
- want to transfer a portion of uncompressed data directly to the
- display to print it
-
-These various types will also affect how the source and destination
-addresses change over time.
-
-Addresses pointing to RAM are typically incremented (or decremented)
-after each transfer. In case of a ring buffer, they may loop
-(DMA_CYCLIC). Addresses pointing to a device's register (e.g. a FIFO)
-are typically fixed.
-
-Device operations
------------------
-
-Our dma_device structure also requires a few function pointers in
-order to implement the actual logic, now that we described what
-operations we were able to perform.
-
-The functions that we have to fill in there, and hence have to
-implement, obviously depend on the transaction types you reported as
-supported.
-
- * device_alloc_chan_resources
- * device_free_chan_resources
- - These functions will be called whenever a driver will call
- dma_request_channel or dma_release_channel for the first/last
- time on the channel associated to that driver.
- - They are in charge of allocating/freeing all the needed
- resources in order for that channel to be useful for your
- driver.
- - These functions can sleep.
-
- * device_prep_dma_*
- - These functions are matching the capabilities you registered
- previously.
- - These functions all take the buffer or the scatterlist relevant
- for the transfer being prepared, and should create a hardware
- descriptor or a list of hardware descriptors from it
- - These functions can be called from an interrupt context
- - Any allocation you might do should be using the GFP_NOWAIT
- flag, in order not to potentially sleep, but without depleting
- the emergency pool either.
- - Drivers should try to pre-allocate any memory they might need
- during the transfer setup at probe time to avoid putting to
- much pressure on the nowait allocator.
-
- - It should return a unique instance of the
- dma_async_tx_descriptor structure, that further represents this
- particular transfer.
-
- - This structure can be initialized using the function
- dma_async_tx_descriptor_init.
- - You'll also need to set two fields in this structure:
- + flags:
- TODO: Can it be modified by the driver itself, or
- should it be always the flags passed in the arguments
-
- + tx_submit: A pointer to a function you have to implement,
- that is supposed to push the current
- transaction descriptor to a pending queue, waiting
- for issue_pending to be called.
- - In this structure the function pointer callback_result can be
- initialized in order for the submitter to be notified that a
- transaction has completed. In the earlier code the function pointer
- callback has been used. However it does not provide any status to the
- transaction and will be deprecated. The result structure defined as
- dmaengine_result that is passed in to callback_result has two fields:
- + result: This provides the transfer result defined by
- dmaengine_tx_result. Either success or some error
- condition.
- + residue: Provides the residue bytes of the transfer for those that
- support residue.
-
- * device_issue_pending
- - Takes the first transaction descriptor in the pending queue,
- and starts the transfer. Whenever that transfer is done, it
- should move to the next transaction in the list.
- - This function can be called in an interrupt context
-
- * device_tx_status
- - Should report the bytes left to go over on the given channel
- - Should only care about the transaction descriptor passed as
- argument, not the currently active one on a given channel
- - The tx_state argument might be NULL
- - Should use dma_set_residue to report it
- - In the case of a cyclic transfer, it should only take into
- account the current period.
- - This function can be called in an interrupt context.
-
- * device_config
- - Reconfigures the channel with the configuration given as
- argument
- - This command should NOT perform synchronously, or on any
- currently queued transfers, but only on subsequent ones
- - In this case, the function will receive a dma_slave_config
- structure pointer as an argument, that will detail which
- configuration to use.
- - Even though that structure contains a direction field, this
- field is deprecated in favor of the direction argument given to
- the prep_* functions
- - This call is mandatory for slave operations only. This should NOT be
- set or expected to be set for memcpy operations.
- If a driver support both, it should use this call for slave
- operations only and not for memcpy ones.
-
- * device_pause
- - Pauses a transfer on the channel
- - This command should operate synchronously on the channel,
- pausing right away the work of the given channel
-
- * device_resume
- - Resumes a transfer on the channel
- - This command should operate synchronously on the channel,
- resuming right away the work of the given channel
-
- * device_terminate_all
- - Aborts all the pending and ongoing transfers on the channel
- - For aborted transfers the complete callback should not be called
- - Can be called from atomic context or from within a complete
- callback of a descriptor. Must not sleep. Drivers must be able
- to handle this correctly.
- - Termination may be asynchronous. The driver does not have to
- wait until the currently active transfer has completely stopped.
- See device_synchronize.
-
- * device_synchronize
- - Must synchronize the termination of a channel to the current
- context.
- - Must make sure that memory for previously submitted
- descriptors is no longer accessed by the DMA controller.
- - Must make sure that all complete callbacks for previously
- submitted descriptors have finished running and none are
- scheduled to run.
- - May sleep.
-
-
-Misc notes (stuff that should be documented, but don't really know
-where to put them)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
- * dma_run_dependencies
- - Should be called at the end of an async TX transfer, and can be
- ignored in the slave transfers case.
- - Makes sure that dependent operations are run before marking it
- as complete.
-
- * dma_cookie_t
- - it's a DMA transaction ID that will increment over time.
- - Not really relevant any more since the introduction of virt-dma
- that abstracts it away.
-
- * DMA_CTRL_ACK
- - If clear, the descriptor cannot be reused by provider until the
- client acknowledges receipt, i.e. has has a chance to establish any
- dependency chains
- - This can be acked by invoking async_tx_ack()
- - If set, does not mean descriptor can be reused
-
- * DMA_CTRL_REUSE
- - If set, the descriptor can be reused after being completed. It should
- not be freed by provider if this flag is set.
- - The descriptor should be prepared for reuse by invoking
- dmaengine_desc_set_reuse() which will set DMA_CTRL_REUSE.
- - dmaengine_desc_set_reuse() will succeed only when channel support
- reusable descriptor as exhibited by capabilities
- - As a consequence, if a device driver wants to skip the dma_map_sg() and
- dma_unmap_sg() in between 2 transfers, because the DMA'd data wasn't used,
- it can resubmit the transfer right after its completion.
- - Descriptor can be freed in few ways
- - Clearing DMA_CTRL_REUSE by invoking dmaengine_desc_clear_reuse()
- and submitting for last txn
- - Explicitly invoking dmaengine_desc_free(), this can succeed only
- when DMA_CTRL_REUSE is already set
- - Terminating the channel
-
- * DMA_PREP_CMD
- - If set, the client driver tells DMA controller that passed data in DMA
- API is command data.
- - Interpretation of command data is DMA controller specific. It can be
- used for issuing commands to other peripherals/register reads/register
- writes for which the descriptor should be in different format from
- normal data descriptors.
-
-General Design Notes
---------------------
-
-Most of the DMAEngine drivers you'll see are based on a similar design
-that handles the end of transfer interrupts in the handler, but defer
-most work to a tasklet, including the start of a new transfer whenever
-the previous transfer ended.
-
-This is a rather inefficient design though, because the inter-transfer
-latency will be not only the interrupt latency, but also the
-scheduling latency of the tasklet, which will leave the channel idle
-in between, which will slow down the global transfer rate.
-
-You should avoid this kind of practice, and instead of electing a new
-transfer in your tasklet, move that part to the interrupt handler in
-order to have a shorter idle window (that we can't really avoid
-anyway).
-
-Glossary
---------
-
-Burst: A number of consecutive read or write operations
- that can be queued to buffers before being flushed to
- memory.
-Chunk: A contiguous collection of bursts
-Transfer: A collection of chunks (be it contiguous or not)