xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/hpet.4 (revision d37eb51047221dc3322b34db1038ff3aa533883f)
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25.Dd September 14, 2010
26.Dt HPET 4
27.Os
28.Sh NAME
29.Nm hpet
30.Nd High Precision Event Timer driver
31.Sh SYNOPSIS
32To compile this driver into the kernel,
33place the following lines in your
34kernel configuration file:
35.Bd -ragged -offset indent
36.Cd "device acpi"
37.Ed
38.Pp
39The following tunables are settable from the
40.Xr loader 8 :
41.Bl -ohang
42.It Va hint.hpet. Ns Ar X Ns Va .allowed_irqs
43is a 32bit mask.
44Each set bit allows driver to use respective IRQ,
45if BIOS also set respective capability bit in comparator's configuration
46register.
47Default value is 0xffff0000, except some known broken hardware.
48.It Va hint.hpet. Ns Ar X Ns Va .clock
49controls event timers functionality support.
50Setting to 0, disables it.
51Default value is 1.
52.It Va hint.hpet. Ns Ar X Ns Va .legacy_route
53controls "LegacyReplacement Route" mode.
54If enabled, HPET will steal IRQ0 of i8254 timer and IRQ8 of RTC.
55Before using it, make sure that respective
56drivers are not using interrupts, by setting also:
57.Bd -literal
58hint.attimer.0.clock=0
59hint.atrtc.0.clock=0
60.Ed
61Default value is 0.
62.It Va hint.hpet. Ns Ar X Ns Va .per_cpu
63controls how much per-CPU event timers should driver attempt to register.
64This functionality requires every comparator in a group to have own unshared
65IRQ, so it depends on hardware capabilities and interrupts configuration.
66Default value is 1.
67.El
68.Sh DESCRIPTION
69This driver uses High Precision Event Timer hardware (part of the chipset,
70usually enumerated via ACPI) to supply kernel with one time counter and
71several (usually from 3 to 8) event timers.
72This hardware includes single main counter with known increment frequency
73(10MHz or more), and several programmable comparators (optionally with
74automatic reload feature).
75When value of the main counter matches current value of any comparator,
76interrupt can be generated.
77Depending on hardware capabilities and configuration, interrupt can be
78delivered as regular I/O APIC interrupt (ISA or PCI) in range from 0 to 31,
79or as Front Side Bus interrupt, alike to PCI MSI interrupts, or in so called
80"LegacyReplacement Route" HPET can steal IRQ0 of i8254 and IRQ8 of the RTC.
81Interrupt can be either edge- or level-triggered.
82In last case they could be safely shared with PCI IRQs.
83Driver prefers to use FSB interrupts, if supported, to avoid sharing.
84If it is not possible, it uses single sharable IRQ from PCI range.
85Other modes (LegacyReplacement and ISA IRQs) require special care to setup,
86but could be configured manually via device hints.
87.Pp
88Event timers provided by the driver support both one-shot an periodic modes
89and irrelevant to CPU power states.
90.Pp
91Depending on hardware capabilities and configuration, driver can expose each
92comparator as separate event timer or group them into one or several per-CPU
93event timers.
94In last case interrupt of every of those comparators within
95group is bound to specific CPU core.
96This is possible only when each of these comparators has own unsharable IRQ.
97.Sh SEE ALSO
98.Xr acpi 4 ,
99.Xr apic 4 ,
100.Xr atrtc 4 ,
101.Xr attimer 4 ,
102.Xr eventtimers 4 ,
103.Xr timecounters 4
104.Sh HISTORY
105The
106.Nm
107driver first appeared in
108.Fx 6.3 .
109Support for event timers was added in
110.Fx 9.0 .
111