Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Add HiSilicon system timer driver

[Yicong Yang]

Hi Mark,

On 2023/10/11 21:10, Yicong Yang wrote:
> Hi Mark,
> 
> On 2023/10/11 18:38, Mark Rutland wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 11, 2023 at 10:10:11AM +0800, Yicong Yang wrote:
>>> On 2023/10/11 0:36, Marc Zyngier wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 10 Oct 2023 13:30:30 +0100,
>>>> Yicong Yang <yangyicong@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> From: Yicong Yang <yangyicong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>
>>>>> HiSilicon system timer is a memory mapped platform timer compatible with
>>>>> the arm's generic timer specification. The timer supports both SPI and
>>>>> LPI interrupt and can be enumerated through ACPI DSDT table. Since the
>>>>> timer is fully compatible with the spec, it can reuse most codes of the
>>>>> arm_arch_timer driver. However since the arm_arch_timer driver only
>>>>> supports GTDT and SPI interrupt, this series support the HiSilicon system
>>>>> timer by:
>>>>>
>>>>> - refactor some of the arm_arch_timer codes and export the function to
>>>>>   register a arch memory timer by other drivers
>>>>> - retrieve the IO memory and interrupt resource through DSDT in a separate
>>>>>   driver, then setup and register the clockevent device reuse the arm_arch_timer
>>>>>   function
>>>>>
>>>>> Using LPI for the timer is mentioned in BSA Spec section 3.8.1 (DEN0094C 1.0C).
>>>>
>>>> This strikes me as pretty odd. LPIs are, by definition, *edge*
>>>> triggered. The timer interrupt must be *level* triggered. So there
>>>> must be some bridge in the middle that is going to regenerate edges on
>>>> EOI, and that cannot be architectural.
>>>>
>>>> What am I missing?
>>>
>>> In our case, if the timer is working on LPI mode, it's not directly connected
>>> to the GIC. It'll be wired to hisi-mbigen irqchip which will send LPIs to the
>>> GIC.
>>
>> In that case, the timerr itself isn't using an LPI: it's wired to a secondary
>> interrupt controller, and the secondary interrupt controller is using an LPI.
>>
>> The BSA doesn't describe that as a permitted configuration.
>>
>> I think there are two problems here:
>>
>> (1) The BSA spec is wrong, and shouldn't say "or LPI" here as it simply doesn't
>>     make sense.
>>
>>     I think this should be fixed by removing the "or LPI" wording form the BSA
>>     spec for this interrupt.
>>
>> (2) This platform is not compatible with the BSA, and is not compatible with
>>     the existing ACPI bindings in the GTDT.
>>
>> Do you actually need this wakeup timer?
>>
> 
> Thanks for the quick feedback!
> 
> So the LPI timer mentioned in the BSA spec is probably a mistake and our LPI
> mode is not compatible to the BSA spec. Then I need to discuss with my team
> and re-evaluate the solution for the LPI mode of the timer.
> 

Since our system timer interrupt supports both SPI and non-SPI mode. For some cases
we want to leave SPI interrupt for secure system and the timer for non-secure
system (linux) will be wired to the hisi-mbigen. Just want to confirm if the
solution to support the non-SPI mode in this patchset is acceptable for our use case,
though it's not permitted by BSA spec?

Thanks,
Yicong