• Doug Anderson's avatar
    clocksource: arch_timer: Allow the device tree to specify uninitialized timer registers · 65b5732d
    Doug Anderson authored
    Some 32-bit (ARMv7) systems are architected like this:
    
    * The firmware doesn't know and doesn't care about hypervisor mode and
      we don't want to add the complexity of hypervisor there.
    
    * The firmware isn't involved in SMP bringup or resume.
    
    * The ARCH timer come up with an uninitialized offset (CNTVOFF)
      between the virtual and physical counters.  Each core gets a
      different random offset.
    
    * The device boots in "Secure SVC" mode.
    
    * Nothing has touched the reset value of CNTHCTL.PL1PCEN or
      CNTHCTL.PL1PCTEN (both default to 1 at reset)
    
    On systems like the above, it doesn't make sense to use the virtual
    counter.  There's nobody managing the offset and each time a core goes
    down and comes back up it will get reinitialized to some other random
    value.
    
    This adds an optional property which can inform the kernel of this
    situation, and firmware is free to remove the property if it is going
    to initialize the CNTVOFF registers when each CPU comes out of reset.
    
    Currently, the best course of action in this case is to use the
    physical timer, which is why it is important that CNTHCTL hasn't been
    changed from its reset value and it's a reasonable assumption given
    that the firmware has never entered HYP mode.
    
    Note that it's been said that on ARMv8 systems the firmware and
    kernel really can't be architected as described above.  That means
    using the physical timer like this really only makes sense for ARMv7
    systems.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDoug Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarSonny Rao <sonnyrao@chromium.org>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarMark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
    Acked-by: default avatarDaniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@linaro.org>
    Acked-by: default avatarCatalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarOlof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>
    65b5732d
arch_timer.txt 2.51 KB