Re: [PATCH 10/16] clk: Add support for clock nexus dt bindings

Brian Masney
2026-03-30T15:16:50Z

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 09:09:32PM +0100, Miquel Raynal (Schneider Electric) wrote:
> A nexus node is some kind of parent device abstracting the outer
> connections. They are particularly useful for describing connectors-like
> interfaces but not only. Certain IP blocks will typically include inner
> blocks and distribute resources to them.
>
> In the case of clocks, there is already the concept of clock controller,
> but this usually indicates some kind of control over the said clock,
> ie. gate or rate control. When there is none of this, an existing
> approach is to reference the upper clock, which is wrong from a hardware
> point of view.
>
> Nexus nodes are already part of the device-tree specification and clocks
> are already mentioned:
> https://github.com/devicetree-org/devicetree-specification/blob/v0.4/source/chapter2-devicetree-basics.rst#nexus-nodes-and-specifier-mapping
>
> Following the introductions of nexus nodes support for interrupts, gpios
> and pwms, here is the same logic applied again to the clk subsystem,
> just by transitioning from of_parse_phandle_with_args() to
> of_parse_phandle_with_args_map():
>
> * Nexus OF support:
> commit bd6f2fd5a1d5 ("of: Support parsing phandle argument lists through a nexus node")
> * GPIO adoption:
> commit c11e6f0f04db ("gpio: Support gpio nexus dt bindings")
> * PWM adoption:
> commit e71e46a6f19c ("pwm: Add support for pwm nexus dt bindings")
>
> Expected Nexus properties supported:
> - clock-map: maps inner clocks to inlet clocks,
> - clock-map-mask: specifier cell(s) which will be remapped,
> - clock-map-pass-thru: specifier cell(s) not used for remapping,
> forwarded as-is.
>
> In my own usage I had to deal with controllers where clock-map-mask and
> clock-map-pass-thru were not relevant, but here is a made up example
> showing how all these properties could go together:
>
> Example:
> soc_clk: clock-controller {
> #clock-cells = <2>;
> };
>
> container: container {
> #clock-cells = <2>;
> clock-map = <0 0 &soc_clk 2 0>,
> <1 0 &soc_clk 6 0>;
> clock-map-mask = <0xffffffff 0x0>;
> clock-map-pass-thru = <0x0 0xffffffff>;
>
> child-device {
> clocks = <&container 1 0>;
> /* This is equivalent to <&soc_clk 6 0> */
> };
> };
>
> The child device does not need to know about the outer implementation,
> and only knows about what the nexus provides. The nexus acts as a
> pass-through, with no extra control.
>
> Signed-off-by: Miquel Raynal (Schneider Electric) <miquel.raynal@bootlin.com>
> Reviewed-by: Herve Codina <herve.codina@bootlin.com>
> ---
> drivers/clk/clk.c | 4 ++--
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/clk/clk.c b/drivers/clk/clk.c
> index 93e33ff30f3a..196ba727e84b 100644
> --- a/drivers/clk/clk.c
> +++ b/drivers/clk/clk.c
> @@ -5218,8 +5218,8 @@ static int of_parse_clkspec(const struct device_node *np, int index,
> */
> if (name)
> index = of_property_match_string(np, "clock-names", name);
> - ret = of_parse_phandle_with_args(np, "clocks", "#clock-cells",
> - index, out_args);
> + ret = of_parse_phandle_with_args_map(np, "clocks", "clock",
> + index, out_args);

Before I left my Reviewed-by, I should have double checked Sashiko. It
has several questions about this patch. The first is:

Are there other places in the clock framework that need to transition to the
new map API to ensure assigned clocks work?

For instance, assigned-clocks and assigned-clock-parents are parsed in
drivers/clk/clk-conf.c using of_parse_phandle_with_args(). If a device
specifies an assigned clock that routes through a nexus node, will it fail
to configure because the map is not traversed?

https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260327-schneider-v7-0-rc1-crypto-v1-0-5e6ff7853994%40bootlin.com?patch=12563

Brian