xref: /linux/Documentation/arch/arm/interrupts.rst (revision 44f10dbefd5e41b3385af91f855a57aa2afaf40e)
1==========
2Interrupts
3==========
4
52.5.2-rmk5:
6  This is the first kernel that contains a major shake up of some of the
7  major architecture-specific subsystems.
8
9Firstly, it contains some pretty major changes to the way we handle the
10MMU TLB.  Each MMU TLB variant is now handled completely separately -
11we have TLB v3, TLB v4 (without write buffer), TLB v4 (with write buffer),
12and finally TLB v4 (with write buffer, with I TLB invalidate entry).
13There is more assembly code inside each of these functions, mainly to
14allow more flexible TLB handling for the future.
15
16Secondly, the IRQ subsystem.
17
18The 2.5 kernels will be having major changes to the way IRQs are handled.
19Unfortunately, this means that machine types that touch the irq_desc[]
20array (basically all machine types) will break, and this means every
21machine type that we currently have.
22
23Lets take an example.  On the Assabet with Neponset, we have::
24
25                  GPIO25                 IRR:2
26        SA1100 ------------> Neponset -----------> SA1111
27                                         IIR:1
28                                      -----------> USAR
29                                         IIR:0
30                                      -----------> SMC9196
31
32The way stuff currently works, all SA1111 interrupts are mutually
33exclusive of each other - if you're processing one interrupt from the
34SA1111 and another comes in, you have to wait for that interrupt to
35finish processing before you can service the new interrupt.  Eg, an
36IDE PIO-based interrupt on the SA1111 excludes all other SA1111 and
37SMC9196 interrupts until it has finished transferring its multi-sector
38data, which can be a long time.  Note also that since we loop in the
39SA1111 IRQ handler, SA1111 IRQs can hold off SMC9196 IRQs indefinitely.
40
41
42The new approach brings several new ideas...
43
44We introduce the concept of a "parent" and a "child".  For example,
45to the Neponset handler, the "parent" is GPIO25, and the "children"d
46are SA1111, SMC9196 and USAR.
47
48We also bring the idea of an IRQ "chip" (mainly to reduce the size of
49the irqdesc array).  This doesn't have to be a real "IC"; indeed the
50SA11x0 IRQs are handled by two separate "chip" structures, one for
51GPIO0-10, and another for all the rest.  It is just a container for
52the various operations (maybe this'll change to a better name).
53This structure has the following operations::
54
55  struct irqchip {
56          /*
57           * Acknowledge the IRQ.
58           * If this is a level-based IRQ, then it is expected to mask the IRQ
59           * as well.
60           */
61          void (*ack)(unsigned int irq);
62          /*
63           * Mask the IRQ in hardware.
64           */
65          void (*mask)(unsigned int irq);
66          /*
67           * Unmask the IRQ in hardware.
68           */
69          void (*unmask)(unsigned int irq);
70          /*
71           * Re-run the IRQ
72           */
73          void (*rerun)(unsigned int irq);
74          /*
75           * Set the type of the IRQ.
76           */
77          int (*type)(unsigned int irq, unsigned int, type);
78  };
79
80ack
81       - required.  May be the same function as mask for IRQs
82         handled by do_level_IRQ.
83mask
84       - required.
85unmask
86       - required.
87rerun
88       - optional.  Not required if you're using do_level_IRQ for all
89         IRQs that use this 'irqchip'.  Generally expected to re-trigger
90         the hardware IRQ if possible.  If not, may call the handler
91	 directly.
92type
93       - optional.  If you don't support changing the type of an IRQ,
94         it should be null so people can detect if they are unable to
95         set the IRQ type.
96
97For each IRQ, we keep the following information:
98
99        - "disable" depth (number of disable_irq()s without enable_irq()s)
100        - flags indicating what we can do with this IRQ (valid, probe,
101          noautounmask) as before
102        - status of the IRQ (probing, enable, etc)
103        - chip
104        - per-IRQ handler
105        - irqaction structure list
106
107The handler can be one of the 3 standard handlers - "level", "edge" and
108"simple", or your own specific handler if you need to do something special.
109
110The "level" handler is what we currently have - its pretty simple.
111"edge" knows about the brokenness of such IRQ implementations - that you
112need to leave the hardware IRQ enabled while processing it, and queueing
113further IRQ events should the IRQ happen again while processing.  The
114"simple" handler is very basic, and does not perform any hardware
115manipulation, nor state tracking.  This is useful for things like the
116SMC9196 and USAR above.
117
118So, what's changed?
119===================
120
1211. Machine implementations must not write to the irqdesc array.
122
1232. New functions to manipulate the irqdesc array.  The first 4 are expected
124   to be useful only to machine specific code.  The last is recommended to
125   only be used by machine specific code, but may be used in drivers if
126   absolutely necessary.
127
128        set_irq_chip(irq,chip)
129                Set the mask/unmask methods for handling this IRQ
130
131        set_irq_handler(irq,handler)
132                Set the handler for this IRQ (level, edge, simple)
133
134        set_irq_chained_handler(irq,handler)
135                Set a "chained" handler for this IRQ - automatically
136                enables this IRQ (eg, Neponset and SA1111 handlers).
137
138        set_irq_flags(irq,flags)
139                Set the valid/probe/noautoenable flags.
140
141        set_irq_type(irq,type)
142                Set active the IRQ edge(s)/level.  This replaces the
143                SA1111 INTPOL manipulation, and the set_GPIO_IRQ_edge()
144                function.  Type should be one of IRQ_TYPE_xxx defined in
145		<linux/irq.h>
146
1473. set_GPIO_IRQ_edge() is obsolete, and should be replaced by set_irq_type.
148
1494. Direct access to SA1111 INTPOL is deprecated.  Use set_irq_type instead.
150
1515. A handler is expected to perform any necessary acknowledgement of the
152   parent IRQ via the correct chip specific function.  For instance, if
153   the SA1111 is directly connected to a SA1110 GPIO, then you should
154   acknowledge the SA1110 IRQ each time you re-read the SA1111 IRQ status.
155
1566. For any child which doesn't have its own IRQ enable/disable controls
157   (eg, SMC9196), the handler must mask or acknowledge the parent IRQ
158   while the child handler is called, and the child handler should be the
159   "simple" handler (not "edge" nor "level").  After the handler completes,
160   the parent IRQ should be unmasked, and the status of all children must
161   be re-checked for pending events.  (see the Neponset IRQ handler for
162   details).
163
1647. fixup_irq() is gone, as is `arch/arm/mach-*/include/mach/irq.h`
165
166Please note that this will not solve all problems - some of them are
167hardware based.  Mixing level-based and edge-based IRQs on the same
168parent signal (eg neponset) is one such area where a software based
169solution can't provide the full answer to low IRQ latency.
170