Re: [PATCH 7/7] iio: adc: ad7606: add support for AD7606C-{16,18} parts

[David Lechner <dlechner@baylibre.com>]

On 8/19/24 1:47 AM, Alexandru Ardelean wrote:
> The AD7606C-16 and AD7606C-18 are pretty similar with the AD7606B.
> The main difference between AD7606C-16 & AD7606C-18 is the precision in
> bits (16 vs 18).
> Because of that, some scales need to be defined for the 18-bit variants, as
> they need to be computed against 2**18 (vs 2**16 for the 16 bit-variants).
> 
> Because the AD7606C-16,18 also supports bipolar & differential channels,
> for SW-mode, the default range of 10 V or ±10V should be set at probe.
> On reset, the default range (in the registers) is set to value 0x3 which
> corresponds to '±10 V single-ended range', regardless of bipolar or
> differential configuration.
> 
> Aside from the scale/ranges, the AD7606C-16 is similar to the AD7606B.
> 
> And the AD7606C-18 variant offers 18-bit precision. The unfortunate effect
> of this 18-bit sample size, is that there is no simple/neat way to get the
> samples into a 32-bit array without having to do a home-brewed bit-buffer.
> The ADC must read all samples (from all 8 channels) in order to get the
> N-th sample (this could be reworked to do up-to-N-th sample for scan-direct).
> There doesn't seem to be any quick-trick to be usable to pad the samples
> up to at least 24 bits.
> Even the optional status-header is 8-bits, which would mean 26-bits of data
> per sample.
> That means that when using a simple SPI controller (which can usually read
> 8 bit multiples) a simple bit-buffer trick is required.
> 
Maybe it would be better to just use .bits_per_word = 18 for the 18-bit
ADC and not worry about "simple" SPI controller support for that one?