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Documentation / i2c / i2c-topology


Based on kernel version 4.16.1. Page generated on 2018-04-09 11:53 EST.

1	I2C topology
2	============
3	
4	There are a couple of reasons for building more complex i2c topologies
5	than a straight-forward i2c bus with one adapter and one or more devices.
6	
7	1. A mux may be needed on the bus to prevent address collisions.
8	
9	2. The bus may be accessible from some external bus master, and arbitration
10	   may be needed to determine if it is ok to access the bus.
11	
12	3. A device (particularly RF tuners) may want to avoid the digital noise
13	   from the i2c bus, at least most of the time, and sits behind a gate
14	   that has to be operated before the device can be accessed.
15	
16	Etc
17	
18	These constructs are represented as i2c adapter trees by Linux, where
19	each adapter has a parent adapter (except the root adapter) and zero or
20	more child adapters. The root adapter is the actual adapter that issues
21	i2c transfers, and all adapters with a parent are part of an "i2c-mux"
22	object (quoted, since it can also be an arbitrator or a gate).
23	
24	Depending of the particular mux driver, something happens when there is
25	an i2c transfer on one of its child adapters. The mux driver can
26	obviously operate a mux, but it can also do arbitration with an external
27	bus master or open a gate. The mux driver has two operations for this,
28	select and deselect. select is called before the transfer and (the
29	optional) deselect is called after the transfer.
30	
31	
32	Locking
33	=======
34	
35	There are two variants of locking available to i2c muxes, they can be
36	mux-locked or parent-locked muxes. As is evident from below, it can be
37	useful to know if a mux is mux-locked or if it is parent-locked. The
38	following list was correct at the time of writing:
39	
40	In drivers/i2c/muxes/
41	i2c-arb-gpio-challenge    Parent-locked
42	i2c-mux-gpio              Normally parent-locked, mux-locked iff
43	                          all involved gpio pins are controlled by the
44	                          same i2c root adapter that they mux.
45	i2c-mux-gpmux             Normally parent-locked, mux-locked iff
46	                          specified in device-tree.
47	i2c-mux-ltc4306           Mux-locked
48	i2c-mux-mlxcpld           Parent-locked
49	i2c-mux-pca9541           Parent-locked
50	i2c-mux-pca954x           Parent-locked
51	i2c-mux-pinctrl           Normally parent-locked, mux-locked iff
52	                          all involved pinctrl devices are controlled
53	                          by the same i2c root adapter that they mux.
54	i2c-mux-reg               Parent-locked
55	
56	In drivers/iio/
57	gyro/mpu3050              Mux-locked
58	imu/inv_mpu6050/          Mux-locked
59	
60	In drivers/media/
61	dvb-frontends/lgdt3306a   Mux-locked
62	dvb-frontends/m88ds3103   Parent-locked
63	dvb-frontends/rtl2830     Parent-locked
64	dvb-frontends/rtl2832     Mux-locked
65	dvb-frontends/si2168      Mux-locked
66	usb/cx231xx/              Parent-locked
67	
68	
69	Mux-locked muxes
70	----------------
71	
72	Mux-locked muxes does not lock the entire parent adapter during the
73	full select-transfer-deselect transaction, only the muxes on the parent
74	adapter are locked. Mux-locked muxes are mostly interesting if the
75	select and/or deselect operations must use i2c transfers to complete
76	their tasks. Since the parent adapter is not fully locked during the
77	full transaction, unrelated i2c transfers may interleave the different
78	stages of the transaction. This has the benefit that the mux driver
79	may be easier and cleaner to implement, but it has some caveats.
80	
81	ML1. If you build a topology with a mux-locked mux being the parent
82	     of a parent-locked mux, this might break the expectation from the
83	     parent-locked mux that the root adapter is locked during the
84	     transaction.
85	
86	ML2. It is not safe to build arbitrary topologies with two (or more)
87	     mux-locked muxes that are not siblings, when there are address
88	     collisions between the devices on the child adapters of these
89	     non-sibling muxes.
90	
91	     I.e. the select-transfer-deselect transaction targeting e.g. device
92	     address 0x42 behind mux-one may be interleaved with a similar
93	     operation targeting device address 0x42 behind mux-two. The
94	     intension with such a topology would in this hypothetical example
95	     be that mux-one and mux-two should not be selected simultaneously,
96	     but mux-locked muxes do not guarantee that in all topologies.
97	
98	ML3. A mux-locked mux cannot be used by a driver for auto-closing
99	     gates/muxes, i.e. something that closes automatically after a given
100	     number (one, in most cases) of i2c transfers. Unrelated i2c transfers
101	     may creep in and close prematurely.
102	
103	ML4. If any non-i2c operation in the mux driver changes the i2c mux state,
104	     the driver has to lock the root adapter during that operation.
105	     Otherwise garbage may appear on the bus as seen from devices
106	     behind the mux, when an unrelated i2c transfer is in flight during
107	     the non-i2c mux-changing operation.
108	
109	
110	Mux-locked Example
111	------------------
112	
113	                   .----------.     .--------.
114	    .--------.     |   mux-   |-----| dev D1 |
115	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     '--------'
116	    '--------'  |  |  mux M1  |--.  .--------.
117	                |  '----------'  '--| dev D2 |
118	                |  .--------.       '--------'
119	                '--| dev D3 |
120	                   '--------'
121	
122	When there is an access to D1, this happens:
123	
124	 1. Someone issues an i2c-transfer to D1.
125	 2. M1 locks muxes on its parent (the root adapter in this case).
126	 3. M1 calls ->select to ready the mux.
127	 4. M1 (presumably) does some i2c-transfers as part of its select.
128	    These transfers are normal i2c-transfers that locks the parent
129	    adapter.
130	 5. M1 feeds the i2c-transfer from step 1 to its parent adapter as a
131	    normal i2c-transfer that locks the parent adapter.
132	 6. M1 calls ->deselect, if it has one.
133	 7. Same rules as in step 4, but for ->deselect.
134	 8. M1 unlocks muxes on its parent.
135	
136	This means that accesses to D2 are lockout out for the full duration
137	of the entire operation. But accesses to D3 are possibly interleaved
138	at any point.
139	
140	
141	Parent-locked muxes
142	-------------------
143	
144	Parent-locked muxes lock the parent adapter during the full select-
145	transfer-deselect transaction. The implication is that the mux driver
146	has to ensure that any and all i2c transfers through that parent
147	adapter during the transaction are unlocked i2c transfers (using e.g.
148	__i2c_transfer), or a deadlock will follow. There are a couple of
149	caveats.
150	
151	PL1. If you build a topology with a parent-locked mux being the child
152	     of another mux, this might break a possible assumption from the
153	     child mux that the root adapter is unused between its select op
154	     and the actual transfer (e.g. if the child mux is auto-closing
155	     and the parent mux issus i2c-transfers as part of its select).
156	     This is especially the case if the parent mux is mux-locked, but
157	     it may also happen if the parent mux is parent-locked.
158	
159	PL2. If select/deselect calls out to other subsystems such as gpio,
160	     pinctrl, regmap or iio, it is essential that any i2c transfers
161	     caused by these subsystems are unlocked. This can be convoluted to
162	     accomplish, maybe even impossible if an acceptably clean solution
163	     is sought.
164	
165	
166	Parent-locked Example
167	---------------------
168	
169	                   .----------.     .--------.
170	    .--------.     |  parent- |-----| dev D1 |
171	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     '--------'
172	    '--------'  |  |  mux M1  |--.  .--------.
173	                |  '----------'  '--| dev D2 |
174	                |  .--------.       '--------'
175	                '--| dev D3 |
176	                   '--------'
177	
178	When there is an access to D1, this happens:
179	
180	 1. Someone issues an i2c-transfer to D1.
181	 2. M1 locks muxes on its parent (the root adapter in this case).
182	 3. M1 locks its parent adapter.
183	 4. M1 calls ->select to ready the mux.
184	 5. If M1 does any i2c-transfers (on this root adapter) as part of
185	    its select, those transfers must be unlocked i2c-transfers so
186	    that they do not deadlock the root adapter.
187	 6. M1 feeds the i2c-transfer from step 1 to the root adapter as an
188	    unlocked i2c-transfer, so that it does not deadlock the parent
189	    adapter.
190	 7. M1 calls ->deselect, if it has one.
191	 8. Same rules as in step 5, but for ->deselect.
192	 9. M1 unlocks its parent adapter.
193	10. M1 unlocks muxes on its parent.
194	
195	
196	This means that accesses to both D2 and D3 are locked out for the full
197	duration of the entire operation.
198	
199	
200	Complex Examples
201	================
202	
203	Parent-locked mux as parent of parent-locked mux
204	------------------------------------------------
205	
206	This is a useful topology, but it can be bad.
207	
208	                   .----------.     .----------.     .--------.
209	    .--------.     |  parent- |-----|  parent- |-----| dev D1 |
210	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     |  locked  |     '--------'
211	    '--------'  |  |  mux M1  |--.  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
212	                |  '----------'  |  '----------'  '--| dev D2 |
213	                |  .--------.    |  .--------.       '--------'
214	                '--| dev D4 |    '--| dev D3 |
215	                   '--------'       '--------'
216	
217	When any device is accessed, all other devices are locked out for
218	the full duration of the operation (both muxes lock their parent,
219	and specifically when M2 requests its parent to lock, M1 passes
220	the buck to the root adapter).
221	
222	This topology is bad if M2 is an auto-closing mux and M1->select
223	issues any unlocked i2c transfers on the root adapter that may leak
224	through and be seen by the M2 adapter, thus closing M2 prematurely.
225	
226	
227	Mux-locked mux as parent of mux-locked mux
228	------------------------------------------
229	
230	This is a good topology.
231	
232	                   .----------.     .----------.     .--------.
233	    .--------.     |   mux-   |-----|   mux-   |-----| dev D1 |
234	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     |  locked  |     '--------'
235	    '--------'  |  |  mux M1  |--.  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
236	                |  '----------'  |  '----------'  '--| dev D2 |
237	                |  .--------.    |  .--------.       '--------'
238	                '--| dev D4 |    '--| dev D3 |
239	                   '--------'       '--------'
240	
241	When device D1 is accessed, accesses to D2 are locked out for the
242	full duration of the operation (muxes on the top child adapter of M1
243	are locked). But accesses to D3 and D4 are possibly interleaved at
244	any point. Accesses to D3 locks out D1 and D2, but accesses to D4
245	are still possibly interleaved.
246	
247	
248	Mux-locked mux as parent of parent-locked mux
249	---------------------------------------------
250	
251	This is probably a bad topology.
252	
253	                   .----------.     .----------.     .--------.
254	    .--------.     |   mux-   |-----|  parent- |-----| dev D1 |
255	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     |  locked  |     '--------'
256	    '--------'  |  |  mux M1  |--.  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
257	                |  '----------'  |  '----------'  '--| dev D2 |
258	                |  .--------.    |  .--------.       '--------'
259	                '--| dev D4 |    '--| dev D3 |
260	                   '--------'       '--------'
261	
262	When device D1 is accessed, accesses to D2 and D3 are locked out
263	for the full duration of the operation (M1 locks child muxes on the
264	root adapter). But accesses to D4 are possibly interleaved at any
265	point.
266	
267	This kind of topology is generally not suitable and should probably
268	be avoided. The reason is that M2 probably assumes that there will
269	be no i2c transfers during its calls to ->select and ->deselect, and
270	if there are, any such transfers might appear on the slave side of M2
271	as partial i2c transfers, i.e. garbage or worse. This might cause
272	device lockups and/or other problems.
273	
274	The topology is especially troublesome if M2 is an auto-closing
275	mux. In that case, any interleaved accesses to D4 might close M2
276	prematurely, as might any i2c-transfers part of M1->select.
277	
278	But if M2 is not making the above stated assumption, and if M2 is not
279	auto-closing, the topology is fine.
280	
281	
282	Parent-locked mux as parent of mux-locked mux
283	---------------------------------------------
284	
285	This is a good topology.
286	
287	                   .----------.     .----------.     .--------.
288	    .--------.     |  parent- |-----|   mux-   |-----| dev D1 |
289	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     |  locked  |     '--------'
290	    '--------'  |  |  mux M1  |--.  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
291	                |  '----------'  |  '----------'  '--| dev D2 |
292	                |  .--------.    |  .--------.       '--------'
293	                '--| dev D4 |    '--| dev D3 |
294	                   '--------'       '--------'
295	
296	When D1 is accessed, accesses to D2 are locked out for the full
297	duration of the operation (muxes on the top child adapter of M1
298	are locked). Accesses to D3 and D4 are possibly interleaved at
299	any point, just as is expected for mux-locked muxes.
300	
301	When D3 or D4 are accessed, everything else is locked out. For D3
302	accesses, M1 locks the root adapter. For D4 accesses, the root
303	adapter is locked directly.
304	
305	
306	Two mux-locked sibling muxes
307	----------------------------
308	
309	This is a good topology.
310	
311	                                    .--------.
312	                   .----------.  .--| dev D1 |
313	                   |   mux-   |--'  '--------'
314	                .--|  locked  |     .--------.
315	                |  |  mux M1  |-----| dev D2 |
316	                |  '----------'     '--------'
317	                |  .----------.     .--------.
318	    .--------.  |  |   mux-   |-----| dev D3 |
319	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     '--------'
320	    '--------'  |  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
321	                |  '----------'  '--| dev D4 |
322	                |  .--------.       '--------'
323	                '--| dev D5 |
324	                   '--------'
325	
326	When D1 is accessed, accesses to D2, D3 and D4 are locked out. But
327	accesses to D5 may be interleaved at any time.
328	
329	
330	Two parent-locked sibling muxes
331	-------------------------------
332	
333	This is a good topology.
334	
335	                                    .--------.
336	                   .----------.  .--| dev D1 |
337	                   |  parent- |--'  '--------'
338	                .--|  locked  |     .--------.
339	                |  |  mux M1  |-----| dev D2 |
340	                |  '----------'     '--------'
341	                |  .----------.     .--------.
342	    .--------.  |  |  parent- |-----| dev D3 |
343	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     '--------'
344	    '--------'  |  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
345	                |  '----------'  '--| dev D4 |
346	                |  .--------.       '--------'
347	                '--| dev D5 |
348	                   '--------'
349	
350	When any device is accessed, accesses to all other devices are locked
351	out.
352	
353	
354	Mux-locked and parent-locked sibling muxes
355	------------------------------------------
356	
357	This is a good topology.
358	
359	                                    .--------.
360	                   .----------.  .--| dev D1 |
361	                   |   mux-   |--'  '--------'
362	                .--|  locked  |     .--------.
363	                |  |  mux M1  |-----| dev D2 |
364	                |  '----------'     '--------'
365	                |  .----------.     .--------.
366	    .--------.  |  |  parent- |-----| dev D3 |
367	    |  root  |--+--|  locked  |     '--------'
368	    '--------'  |  |  mux M2  |--.  .--------.
369	                |  '----------'  '--| dev D4 |
370	                |  .--------.       '--------'
371	                '--| dev D5 |
372	                   '--------'
373	
374	When D1 or D2 are accessed, accesses to D3 and D4 are locked out while
375	accesses to D5 may interleave. When D3 or D4 are accessed, accesses to
376	all other devices are locked out.
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