Re: [PATCH v1 0/2] Common SerDes driver for TI's Keystone Platforms

[Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@arm.linux.org.uk>]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 08:00:41PM -0500, Rob Herring wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 11:51 AM, Russell King - ARM Linux
> <linux@arm.linux.org.uk> wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 10:25:43AM -0400, WingMan Kwok wrote:
> >> On TI's Keystone platforms, several peripherals such as the
> >> gbe ethernet switch, 10gbe ethether switch and PCIe controller
> >> require the use of a SerDes for converting SoC parallel data into
> >> serialized data that can be output over a high-speed electrical
> >> interface, and also converting high-speed serial input data
> >> into parallel data that can be processed by the SoC.  The
> >> SerDeses used by those peripherals, though they may be different,
> >> are largely similar in functionality and setup.
> >
> > Given that serdes is not specific to TI, should this be specific to
> > TI, or should there be an effort to come up with something which
> > everyone who has serdes links can make use of?
> >
> > Serdes comes in multiple different forms: PCIe, 1G SGMII ethernet,
> > 1000base-X ethernet, 10g ethernet, SATA... I'd hate to see a
> > plethora of SoC specific stuff for this.
> 
> The licensed IP I've seen doesn't provide a standard register
> interface, but just signals to the IP block. Same with PLL IP. So
> we'll probably get to see vendors continue to differentiate on PHY
> register design. :)

So what?  Network drivers differ radically in register design, yet we
still have a standardised interface to network drivers.

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