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+Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
+=================================
+
+SPI is the "Serial Peripheral Interface", widely used with embedded
+systems because it is a simple and efficient interface: basically a
+multiplexed shift register. Its three signal wires hold a clock (SCK,
+often in the range of 1-20 MHz), a "Master Out, Slave In" (MOSI) data
+line, and a "Master In, Slave Out" (MISO) data line. SPI is a full
+duplex protocol; for each bit shifted out the MOSI line (one per clock)
+another is shifted in on the MISO line. Those bits are assembled into
+words of various sizes on the way to and from system memory. An
+additional chipselect line is usually active-low (nCS); four signals are
+normally used for each peripheral, plus sometimes an interrupt.
+
+The SPI bus facilities listed here provide a generalized interface to
+declare SPI busses and devices, manage them according to the standard
+Linux driver model, and perform input/output operations. At this time,
+only "master" side interfaces are supported, where Linux talks to SPI
+peripherals and does not implement such a peripheral itself. (Interfaces
+to support implementing SPI slaves would necessarily look different.)
+
+The programming interface is structured around two kinds of driver, and
+two kinds of device. A "Controller Driver" abstracts the controller
+hardware, which may be as simple as a set of GPIO pins or as complex as
+a pair of FIFOs connected to dual DMA engines on the other side of the
+SPI shift register (maximizing throughput). Such drivers bridge between
+whatever bus they sit on (often the platform bus) and SPI, and expose
+the SPI side of their device as a :c:type:`struct spi_master
+<spi_master>`. SPI devices are children of that master,
+represented as a :c:type:`struct spi_device <spi_device>` and
+manufactured from :c:type:`struct spi_board_info
+<spi_board_info>` descriptors which are usually provided by
+board-specific initialization code. A :c:type:`struct spi_driver
+<spi_driver>` is called a "Protocol Driver", and is bound to a
+spi_device using normal driver model calls.
+
+The I/O model is a set of queued messages. Protocol drivers submit one
+or more :c:type:`struct spi_message <spi_message>` objects,
+which are processed and completed asynchronously. (There are synchronous
+wrappers, however.) Messages are built from one or more
+:c:type:`struct spi_transfer <spi_transfer>` objects, each of
+which wraps a full duplex SPI transfer. A variety of protocol tweaking
+options are needed, because different chips adopt very different
+policies for how they use the bits transferred with SPI.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/spi/spi.h
+ :internal:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/spi/spi.c
+ :functions: spi_register_board_info
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/spi/spi.c
+ :export: