Re: [PATCH net-next 4/5] net: ipqess: add a PSGMII calibration procedure to the IPQESS driver

[Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>]

> Yes, I'll add more detailed comments to the code in the v2. The calibration 
> procedure itself targets the PSGMII device, which is internal to the SoC and can 
> be logically accessed as a PHY device on the MDIO bus. This component is a 
> little opaque and has some nonstandard MII register definitions.
> 
> The "testing" phase that follows the calibration accesses both the internal 
> QCA8K switch ports and the external QCA8075 PHY. For example, it puts both the 
> switch ports and the PHY ports in loopback before starting packet generation on 
> the external PHYs. This is done to verify that the PSGMII link works correctly 
> after being calibrated.
> 
> So this code interacts with both internal ESS devices and external PHYs, but 
> mostly the former, which is why I kept everything in the MAC/switch driver.

Accessing the external PHYs i would suggest go over the normal phylib
API. Somebody might build a board using a different PHY, with
different registers. If all you need is loopback, there is a phylib
call for that.

Directly accessing the internal ESS is fine, it cannot be changed, but
if there are phylib helpers which do the same thing, consider using
them.

     Andrew