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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=====================================
+GENERIC SYSTEM INTERCONNECT SUBSYSTEM
+=====================================
+
+Introduction
+------------
+
+This framework is designed to provide a standard kernel interface to control
+the settings of the interconnects on an SoC. These settings can be throughput,
+latency and priority between multiple interconnected devices or functional
+blocks. This can be controlled dynamically in order to save power or provide
+maximum performance.
+
+The interconnect bus is hardware with configurable parameters, which can be
+set on a data path according to the requests received from various drivers.
+An example of interconnect buses are the interconnects between various
+components or functional blocks in chipsets. There can be multiple interconnects
+on an SoC that can be multi-tiered.
+
+Below is a simplified diagram of a real-world SoC interconnect bus topology.
+
+::
+
+ +----------------+ +----------------+
+ | HW Accelerator |--->| M NoC |<---------------+
+ +----------------+ +----------------+ |
+ | | +------------+
+ +-----+ +-------------+ V +------+ | |
+ | DDR | | +--------+ | PCIe | | |
+ +-----+ | | Slaves | +------+ | |
+ ^ ^ | +--------+ | | C NoC |
+ | | V V | |
+ +------------------+ +------------------------+ | | +-----+
+ | |-->| |-->| |-->| CPU |
+ | |-->| |<--| | +-----+
+ | Mem NoC | | S NoC | +------------+
+ | |<--| |---------+ |
+ | |<--| |<------+ | | +--------+
+ +------------------+ +------------------------+ | | +-->| Slaves |
+ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ | | +--------+
+ | | | | | | V
+ +------+ | +-----+ +-----+ +---------+ +----------------+ +--------+
+ | CPUs | | | GPU | | DSP | | Masters |-->| P NoC |-->| Slaves |
+ +------+ | +-----+ +-----+ +---------+ +----------------+ +--------+
+ |
+ +-------+
+ | Modem |
+ +-------+
+
+Terminology
+-----------
+
+Interconnect provider is the software definition of the interconnect hardware.
+The interconnect providers on the above diagram are M NoC, S NoC, C NoC, P NoC
+and Mem NoC.
+
+Interconnect node is the software definition of the interconnect hardware
+port. Each interconnect provider consists of multiple interconnect nodes,
+which are connected to other SoC components including other interconnect
+providers. The point on the diagram where the CPUs connect to the memory is
+called an interconnect node, which belongs to the Mem NoC interconnect provider.
+
+Interconnect endpoints are the first or the last element of the path. Every
+endpoint is a node, but not every node is an endpoint.
+
+Interconnect path is everything between two endpoints including all the nodes
+that have to be traversed to reach from a source to destination node. It may
+include multiple master-slave pairs across several interconnect providers.
+
+Interconnect consumers are the entities which make use of the data paths exposed
+by the providers. The consumers send requests to providers requesting various
+throughput, latency and priority. Usually the consumers are device drivers, that
+send request based on their needs. An example for a consumer is a video decoder
+that supports various formats and image sizes.
+
+Interconnect providers
+----------------------
+
+Interconnect provider is an entity that implements methods to initialize and
+configure interconnect bus hardware. The interconnect provider drivers should
+be registered with the interconnect provider core.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/interconnect-provider.h
+
+Interconnect consumers
+----------------------
+
+Interconnect consumers are the clients which use the interconnect APIs to
+get paths between endpoints and set their bandwidth/latency/QoS requirements
+for these interconnect paths. These interfaces are not currently
+documented.