Re: [RFC 0/5] Add I3C subsystem

Boris Brezillon
2017-12-12T19:58:32Z

On Mon, 31 Jul 2017 21:17:45 +0200
Wolfram Sang <wsa@the-dreams.de> wrote:

> Hi Boris,
>
> > This patch series is a proposal for a new I3C [1] subsystem.
>
> Nice. Good luck with that!
>
> Some hi-level comments from me related to I2C. I can't say a lot more
> because the specs are not public :(
>
> > - the bus element is a separate object and is not implicitly described
> > by the master (as done in I2C). The reason is that I want to be able
> > to handle multiple master connected to the same bus and visible to
> > Linux.
> > In this situation, we should only have one instance of the device and
> > not one per master, and sharing the bus object would be part of the
> > solution to gracefully handle this case.
> > I'm not sure if we will ever need to deal with multiple masters
> > controlling the same bus and exposed under Linux, but separating the
> > bus and master concept is pretty easy, hence the decision to do it
> > now, just in case we need it some day.
>
> From my experience, it is a good thing to have this separation.
>
> > - I2C backward compatibility has been designed to be transparent to I2C
> > drivers and the I2C subsystem. The I3C master just registers an I2C
> > adapter which creates a new I2C bus. I'd say that, from a
> > representation PoV it's not ideal because what should appear as a
> > single I3C bus exposing I3C and I2C devices here appears as 2
> > different busses connected to each other through the parenting (the
> > I3C master is the parent of the I2C and I3C busses).
> > On the other hand, I don't see a better solution if we want something
> > that is not invasive.
>
> I agree this is the least invasive and also the most compatible
> approach. The other solution would probably be to have some kind of
> emulation layer?
>
> > I'd also like to get feedback on the doc. Should I detail a bit more
> > the protocol or the framework API? Is this the kind of things you
> > expect in a subsystem doc?
>
> Since the spec is not public, details about the protocol will be
> especially useful, I'd say.

MIPI has opened the I3C spec [1], it can be downloaded here [2].

v2 of this series will come soon (sorry for the delay).

Regards,

Boris

[1]https://www.businesswire.com/news//home/20171212005059/en/MIPI-Alliance-Opens-Access-MIPI-I3C-Sensor
[2]http://resources.mipi.org/mipi-i3c-v1-download