[RFC 1/5] ARM: at91: add general purpose backup register (GPBR) support

[jhovold@gmail.com (Johan Hovold)]

On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 12:04:17PM +0200, Jean-Christophe PLAGNIOL-VILLARD wrote:
> On 10:46 Mon 08 Apr     , Johan Hovold wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 08, 2013 at 09:33:29AM +0200, Jean-Christophe PLAGNIOL-VILLARD wrote:
> > > On 17:12 Sun 07 Apr     , Johan Hovold wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Add General Purpose Backup Register (GPBR) support.
> > > > 
> > > > Most at91 SoCs have at least four 32-bit General Purpose Backup
> > > > Registers (GPBR) powered by backup-power (VDDBU). One such register is
> > > > currently used by rtc-at91sam9 driver to store the RTC time base.
> > > > 
> > > > Make sure the registers are mapped by arch setup code and add generic
> > > > accessors for in-kernel use.
> > > > 
> > > > This is a step in adding device-tree support to the rtc-at91sam9 driver.
> > > > 
> > > This is a regression
> > > 
> > > we loose the tracking of what request and use the GPBR
> > 
> > Implementing the GPBR accessors using a simple global resource was one
> > quick way forward to decouple and generalise the GPBR. Of course, this
> > could be turned into a more elaborate framework or driver where
> > registers are requested and released by other drivers and possibly also
> > by user-space.
> yes must as we used on SAMA5 to pass the boot source from the firstage
> of the boot loader to the other software

Could you please elaborate on this; how is the GPBR used, how many
registers, and when is it accessed?

Is there already code in at91/at91-3.10-soc or are you referring to
a userspace consumer?

Thanks,
Johan