xref: /linux/Documentation/driver-api/dmaengine/pxa_dma.rst (revision c532de5a67a70f8533d495f8f2aaa9a0491c3ad0)
1==============================
2PXA/MMP - DMA Slave controller
3==============================
4
5Constraints
6===========
7
8a) Transfers hot queuing
9A driver submitting a transfer and issuing it should be granted the transfer
10is queued even on a running DMA channel.
11This implies that the queuing doesn't wait for the previous transfer end,
12and that the descriptor chaining is not only done in the irq/tasklet code
13triggered by the end of the transfer.
14A transfer which is submitted and issued on a phy doesn't wait for a phy to
15stop and restart, but is submitted on a "running channel". The other
16drivers, especially mmp_pdma waited for the phy to stop before relaunching
17a new transfer.
18
19b) All transfers having asked for confirmation should be signaled
20Any issued transfer with DMA_PREP_INTERRUPT should trigger a callback call.
21This implies that even if an irq/tasklet is triggered by end of tx1, but
22at the time of irq/dma tx2 is already finished, tx1->complete() and
23tx2->complete() should be called.
24
25c) Channel running state
26A driver should be able to query if a channel is running or not. For the
27multimedia case, such as video capture, if a transfer is submitted and then
28a check of the DMA channel reports a "stopped channel", the transfer should
29not be issued until the next "start of frame interrupt", hence the need to
30know if a channel is in running or stopped state.
31
32d) Bandwidth guarantee
33The PXA architecture has 4 levels of DMAs priorities : high, normal, low.
34The high priorities get twice as much bandwidth as the normal, which get twice
35as much as the low priorities.
36A driver should be able to request a priority, especially the real-time
37ones such as pxa_camera with (big) throughputs.
38
39Design
40======
41a) Virtual channels
42Same concept as in sa11x0 driver, ie. a driver was assigned a "virtual
43channel" linked to the requestor line, and the physical DMA channel is
44assigned on the fly when the transfer is issued.
45
46b) Transfer anatomy for a scatter-gather transfer
47
48::
49
50   +------------+-----+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
51   | desc-sg[0] | ... | desc-sg[last] | status updater | finisher/linker |
52   +------------+-----+---------------+----------------+-----------------+
53
54This structure is pointed by dma->sg_cpu.
55The descriptors are used as follows :
56
57    - desc-sg[i]: i-th descriptor, transferring the i-th sg
58      element to the video buffer scatter gather
59
60    - status updater
61      Transfers a single u32 to a well known dma coherent memory to leave
62      a trace that this transfer is done. The "well known" is unique per
63      physical channel, meaning that a read of this value will tell which
64      is the last finished transfer at that point in time.
65
66    - finisher: has ddadr=DADDR_STOP, dcmd=ENDIRQEN
67
68    - linker: has ddadr= desc-sg[0] of next transfer, dcmd=0
69
70c) Transfers hot-chaining
71Suppose the running chain is:
72
73::
74
75   Buffer 1              Buffer 2
76   +---------+----+---+  +----+----+----+---+
77   | d0 | .. | dN | l |  | d0 | .. | dN | f |
78   +---------+----+-|-+  ^----+----+----+---+
79                    |    |
80                    +----+
81
82After a call to dmaengine_submit(b3), the chain will look like:
83
84::
85
86   Buffer 1              Buffer 2              Buffer 3
87   +---------+----+---+  +----+----+----+---+  +----+----+----+---+
88   | d0 | .. | dN | l |  | d0 | .. | dN | l |  | d0 | .. | dN | f |
89   +---------+----+-|-+  ^----+----+----+-|-+  ^----+----+----+---+
90                    |    |                |    |
91                    +----+                +----+
92                                         new_link
93
94If while new_link was created the DMA channel stopped, it is _not_
95restarted. Hot-chaining doesn't break the assumption that
96dma_async_issue_pending() is to be used to ensure the transfer is actually started.
97
98One exception to this rule :
99
100- if Buffer1 and Buffer2 had all their addresses 8 bytes aligned
101
102- and if Buffer3 has at least one address not 4 bytes aligned
103
104- then hot-chaining cannot happen, as the channel must be stopped, the
105  "align bit" must be set, and the channel restarted As a consequence,
106  such a transfer tx_submit() will be queued on the submitted queue, and
107  this specific case if the DMA is already running in aligned mode.
108
109d) Transfers completion updater
110Each time a transfer is completed on a channel, an interrupt might be
111generated or not, up to the client's request. But in each case, the last
112descriptor of a transfer, the "status updater", will write the latest
113transfer being completed into the physical channel's completion mark.
114
115This will speed up residue calculation, for large transfers such as video
116buffers which hold around 6k descriptors or more. This also allows without
117any lock to find out what is the latest completed transfer in a running
118DMA chain.
119
120e) Transfers completion, irq and tasklet
121When a transfer flagged as "DMA_PREP_INTERRUPT" is finished, the dma irq
122is raised. Upon this interrupt, a tasklet is scheduled for the physical
123channel.
124
125The tasklet is responsible for :
126
127- reading the physical channel last updater mark
128
129- calling all the transfer callbacks of finished transfers, based on
130  that mark, and each transfer flags.
131
132If a transfer is completed while this handling is done, a dma irq will
133be raised, and the tasklet will be scheduled once again, having a new
134updater mark.
135
136f) Residue
137Residue granularity will be descriptor based. The issued but not completed
138transfers will be scanned for all of their descriptors against the
139currently running descriptor.
140
141g) Most complicated case of driver's tx queues
142The most tricky situation is when :
143
144 - there are not "acked" transfers (tx0)
145
146 - a driver submitted an aligned tx1, not chained
147
148 - a driver submitted an aligned tx2 => tx2 is cold chained to tx1
149
150 - a driver issued tx1+tx2 => channel is running in aligned mode
151
152 - a driver submitted an aligned tx3 => tx3 is hot-chained
153
154 - a driver submitted an unaligned tx4 => tx4 is put in submitted queue,
155   not chained
156
157 - a driver issued tx4 => tx4 is put in issued queue, not chained
158
159 - a driver submitted an aligned tx5 => tx5 is put in submitted queue, not
160   chained
161
162 - a driver submitted an aligned tx6 => tx6 is put in submitted queue,
163   cold chained to tx5
164
165 This translates into (after tx4 is issued) :
166
167 - issued queue
168
169 ::
170
171      +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
172      | tx1 | | tx2 | | tx3 | | tx4 |
173      +---|-+ ^---|-+ ^-----+ +-----+
174          |   |   |   |
175          +---+   +---+
176        - submitted queue
177      +-----+ +-----+
178      | tx5 | | tx6 |
179      +---|-+ ^-----+
180          |   |
181          +---+
182
183- completed queue : empty
184
185- allocated queue : tx0
186
187It should be noted that after tx3 is completed, the channel is stopped, and
188restarted in "unaligned mode" to handle tx4.
189
190Author: Robert Jarzmik <robert.jarzmik@free.fr>
191