Re: [PATCH v2 2/4] clk: keystone: don't cache clock rate

Nishanth Menon
2026-01-09T12:07:35Z

On 08:55-20260102, Michael Walle wrote:
> On Tue Dec 30, 2025 at 9:12 PM CET, Nishanth Menon wrote:
> > On 13:47-20251223, Michael Walle wrote:
> >> The TISCI firmware will return 0 if the clock or consumer is not
> >> enabled although there is a stored value in the firmware. IOW a call to
> >> set rate will work but at get rate will always return 0 if the clock is
> >> disabled.
> >> The clk framework will try to cache the clock rate when it's requested
> >> by a consumer. If the clock or consumer is not enabled at that point,
> >> the cached value is 0, which is wrong. Thus, disable the cache
> >> altogether.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Michael Walle <mwalle@kernel.org>
> >> Reviewed-by: Kevin Hilman <khilman@baylibre.com>
> >> Reviewed-by: Randolph Sapp <rs@ti.com>
> >> ---
> >> drivers/clk/keystone/sci-clk.c | 8 ++++++++
> >> 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/drivers/clk/keystone/sci-clk.c b/drivers/clk/keystone/sci-clk.c
> >> index 9d5071223f4c..0a1565fdbb3b 100644
> >> --- a/drivers/clk/keystone/sci-clk.c
> >> +++ b/drivers/clk/keystone/sci-clk.c
> >> @@ -333,6 +333,14 @@ static int _sci_clk_build(struct sci_clk_provider *provider,
> >>
> >> init.ops = &sci_clk_ops;
> >> init.num_parents = sci_clk->num_parents;
> >> +
> >> + /*
> >> + * A clock rate query to the SCI firmware will return 0 if either the
> >> + * clock itself is disabled or the attached device/consumer is disabled.
> >> + * This makes it inherently unsuitable for the caching of the clk
> >> + * framework.
> >> + */
> >> + init.flags = CLK_GET_RATE_NOCACHE;
> >> sci_clk->hw.init = &init;
> >>
> >> ret = devm_clk_hw_register(provider->dev, &sci_clk->hw);
> >> --
> >> 2.47.3
> >>
> >
> > Reviewed-by: Nishanth Menon <nm@ti.com>
> >
> > I wish there was a better scheme, but inherently, just like SCMI and
> > other systems where power management co-processor controls clocks, there
> > is no real feasible caching scheme I can think of. I wonder if Stephen
> > or others have a thought on this?
> >
> > That said, I wonder if we need fixes tag to this? I am sure there are
> > other clocks susceptible to this as well. I wonder if
> > commit 3c13933c6033 ("clk: keystone: sci-clk: add support for
> > dynamically probing clocks") is the appropriate tag?
>
> >From my previous versions of this patch:
>
> > Regarding a Fixes: tag. I didn't include one because it might have a
> > slight performance impact because the firmware has to be queried
> > every time now and it doesn't have been a problem for now. OTOH I've
> > enabled tracing during boot and there were just a handful
> > clock_{get/set}_rate() calls.
>
> I'm still undecided if this needs a Fixes tag or not. Strictly
> speaking it would need one. Although, I'm not sure it's the one
> you mentioned, because the culprit is the "we return 0 if the clock
> or it's consumer is disabled", which then caches the wrong value.
> So it is probably the very first commit b745c0794e2f ("clk:
> keystone: Add sci-clk driver support").

Stephen: Can you pick the patch or suggest improvements?

--
Regards,
Nishanth Menon
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