summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/NOTES
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'drivers/gpu/drm/msm/NOTES')
-rw-r--r--drivers/gpu/drm/msm/NOTES87
1 files changed, 87 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/NOTES b/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/NOTES
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9c4255b98
--- /dev/null
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/msm/NOTES
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+NOTES about msm drm/kms driver:
+
+In the current snapdragon SoC's, we have (at least) 3 different
+display controller blocks at play:
+ + MDP3 - ?? seems to be what is on geeksphone peak device
+ + MDP4 - S3 (APQ8060, touchpad), S4-pro (APQ8064, nexus4 & ifc6410)
+ + MDP5 - snapdragon 800
+
+(I don't have a completely clear picture on which display controller
+maps to which part #)
+
+Plus a handful of blocks around them for HDMI/DSI/etc output.
+
+And on gpu side of things:
+ + zero, one, or two 2d cores (z180)
+ + and either a2xx or a3xx 3d core.
+
+But, HDMI/DSI/etc blocks seem like they can be shared across multiple
+display controller blocks. And I for sure don't want to have to deal
+with N different kms devices from xf86-video-freedreno. Plus, it
+seems like we can do some clever tricks like use GPU to trigger
+pageflip after rendering completes (ie. have the kms/crtc code build
+up gpu cmdstream to update scanout and write FLUSH register after).
+
+So, the approach is one drm driver, with some modularity. Different
+'struct msm_kms' implementations, depending on display controller.
+And one or more 'struct msm_gpu' for the various different gpu sub-
+modules.
+
+(Second part is not implemented yet. So far this is just basic KMS
+driver, and not exposing any custom ioctls to userspace for now.)
+
+The kms module provides the plane, crtc, and encoder objects, and
+loads whatever connectors are appropriate.
+
+For MDP4, the mapping is:
+
+ plane -> PIPE{RGBn,VGn} \
+ crtc -> OVLP{n} + DMA{P,S,E} (??) |-> MDP "device"
+ encoder -> DTV/LCDC/DSI (within MDP4) /
+ connector -> HDMI/DSI/etc --> other device(s)
+
+Since the irq's that drm core mostly cares about are vblank/framedone,
+we'll let msm_mdp4_kms provide the irq install/uninstall/etc functions
+and treat the MDP4 block's irq as "the" irq. Even though the connectors
+may have their own irqs which they install themselves. For this reason
+the display controller is the "master" device.
+
+For MDP5, the mapping is:
+
+ plane -> PIPE{RGBn,VIGn} \
+ crtc -> LM (layer mixer) |-> MDP "device"
+ encoder -> INTF /
+ connector -> HDMI/DSI/eDP/etc --> other device(s)
+
+Unlike MDP4, it appears we can get by with a single encoder, rather
+than needing a different implementation for DTV, DSI, etc. (Ie. the
+register interface is same, just different bases.)
+
+Also unlike MDP4, with MDP5 all the IRQs for other blocks (HDMI, DSI,
+etc) are routed through MDP.
+
+And finally, MDP5 has this "Shared Memory Pool" (called "SMP"), from
+which blocks need to be allocated to the active pipes based on fetch
+stride.
+
+Each connector probably ends up being a separate device, just for the
+logistics of finding/mapping io region, irq, etc. Idealy we would
+have a better way than just stashing the platform device in a global
+(ie. like DT super-node.. but I don't have any snapdragon hw yet that
+is using DT).
+
+Note that so far I've not been able to get any docs on the hw, and it
+seems that access to such docs would prevent me from working on the
+freedreno gallium driver. So there may be some mistakes in register
+names (I had to invent a few, since no sufficient hint was given in
+the downstream android fbdev driver), bitfield sizes, etc. My current
+state of understanding the registers is given in the envytools rnndb
+files at:
+
+ https://github.com/freedreno/envytools/tree/master/rnndb
+ (the mdp4/hdmi/dsi directories)
+
+These files are used both for a parser tool (in the same tree) to
+parse logged register reads/writes (both from downstream android fbdev
+driver, and this driver with register logging enabled), as well as to
+generate the register level headers.