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

Rob Herring
2015-10-16T01:01:06Z

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. :)

Rob