Re: [RFC 0/9] PCI: introduce the concept of power sequencing of PCIe devices

[Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>]

Hi ChenYu,

CC wsa + renesas-soc

On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 8:08 AM Chen-Yu Tsai <wenst@chromium.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 9, 2024 at 12:09 PM Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/4/2024 5:01 AM, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
> > > From: Bartosz Golaszewski <bartosz.golaszewski@linaro.org>
> > >
> > > During last year's Linux Plumbers we had several discussions centered
> > > around the need to power-on PCI devices before they can be detected on
> > > the bus.
> > >
> > > The consensus during the conference was that we need to introduce a
> > > class of "PCI slot drivers" that would handle the power-sequencing.
> > >
> > > After some additional brain-storming with Manivannan and the realization
> > > that the DT maintainers won't like adding any "fake" nodes not
> > > representing actual devices, we decided to reuse the existing
> > > infrastructure provided by the PCIe port drivers.
> > >
> > > The general idea is to instantiate platform devices for child nodes of
> > > the PCIe port DT node. For those nodes for which a power-sequencing
> > > driver exists, we bind it and let it probe. The driver then triggers a
> > > rescan of the PCI bus with the aim of detecting the now powered-on
> > > device. The device will consume the same DT node as the platform,
> > > power-sequencing device. We use device links to make the latter become
> > > the parent of the former.
> > >
> > > The main advantage of this approach is not modifying the existing DT in
> > > any way and especially not adding any "fake" platform devices.
> >
> > There is prior work in that area which was applied, but eventually reverted:
> >
> > https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-pci/msg119136.html
> >
> > and finally re-applied albeit in a different shape:
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220716222454.29914-1-jim2101024@gmail.com/
> >
> > so we might want to think about how to have pcie-brcmstb.c converted
> > over your proposed approach. AFAIR there is also pcie-rockchip.c which
> > has some rudimentary support for voltage regulators of PCIe end-points.
>
> I think the current in-tree approaches mostly target either PCIe slots,
> whether full size or mini-PCIe or M.2, or soldered-on components that
> either only have a single power rail, have internal regulators, or have
> surrounding circuitry that would be incorporated on a PCIe card.
>
> These all have standardized power rails (+12V, +3.3V, +3.3V aux, etc.).

Indeed. E.g. R-Car PCIe just got support for that in commit
6797e4da2dd1e2c8 ("PCI: rcar-host: Add support for optional regulators")
in pci/next.

> > What does not yet appear in this RFC is support for suspend/resume,
> > especially for power states where both the RC and the EP might be losing
> > power. There also needs to be some thoughts given to wake-up enabled
> > PCIe devices like Wi-Fi which might need to remain powered on to service
> > Wake-on-WLAN frames if nothing else.
> >
> > I sense a potential for a lot of custom power sequencing drivers being
> > added and ultimately leading to the decision to create a "generic" one
> > which is entirely driven by Device Tree properties...
>
> We can have one "generic" slot power sequencing driver, which just
> enables all the power rails together. I would very much like to see that.
>
> I believe the power sequencing in this series is currently targeting more
> tightly coupled designs that use power rails directly from the PMIC, and
> thus require more explicit power sequencing.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

-- 
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds