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+.. Copyright 2007-2008 Wolfson Microelectronics
+
+.. This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
+.. it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
+.. License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
+
+=================================
+Voltage and current regulator API
+=================================
+
+:Author: Liam Girdwood
+:Author: Mark Brown
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+This framework is designed to provide a standard kernel interface to
+control voltage and current regulators.
+
+The intention is to allow systems to dynamically control regulator power
+output in order to save power and prolong battery life. This applies to
+both voltage regulators (where voltage output is controllable) and
+current sinks (where current limit is controllable).
+
+Note that additional (and currently more complete) documentation is
+available in the Linux kernel source under
+``Documentation/power/regulator``.
+
+Glossary
+--------
+
+The regulator API uses a number of terms which may not be familiar:
+
+Regulator
+
+ Electronic device that supplies power to other devices. Most regulators
+ can enable and disable their output and some can also control their
+ output voltage or current.
+
+Consumer
+
+ Electronic device which consumes power provided by a regulator. These
+ may either be static, requiring only a fixed supply, or dynamic,
+ requiring active management of the regulator at runtime.
+
+Power Domain
+
+ The electronic circuit supplied by a given regulator, including the
+ regulator and all consumer devices. The configuration of the regulator
+ is shared between all the components in the circuit.
+
+Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC)
+
+ An IC which contains numerous regulators and often also other
+ subsystems. In an embedded system the primary PMIC is often equivalent
+ to a combination of the PSU and southbridge in a desktop system.
+
+Consumer driver interface
+=========================
+
+This offers a similar API to the kernel clock framework. Consumer
+drivers use `get <#API-regulator-get>`__ and
+`put <#API-regulator-put>`__ operations to acquire and release
+regulators. Functions are provided to `enable <#API-regulator-enable>`__
+and `disable <#API-regulator-disable>`__ the regulator and to get and
+set the runtime parameters of the regulator.
+
+When requesting regulators consumers use symbolic names for their
+supplies, such as "Vcc", which are mapped into actual regulator devices
+by the machine interface.
+
+A stub version of this API is provided when the regulator framework is
+not in use in order to minimise the need to use ifdefs.
+
+Enabling and disabling
+----------------------
+
+The regulator API provides reference counted enabling and disabling of
+regulators. Consumer devices use the :c:func:`regulator_enable()` and
+:c:func:`regulator_disable()` functions to enable and disable
+regulators. Calls to the two functions must be balanced.
+
+Note that since multiple consumers may be using a regulator and machine
+constraints may not allow the regulator to be disabled there is no
+guarantee that calling :c:func:`regulator_disable()` will actually
+cause the supply provided by the regulator to be disabled. Consumer
+drivers should assume that the regulator may be enabled at all times.
+
+Configuration
+-------------
+
+Some consumer devices may need to be able to dynamically configure their
+supplies. For example, MMC drivers may need to select the correct
+operating voltage for their cards. This may be done while the regulator
+is enabled or disabled.
+
+The :c:func:`regulator_set_voltage()` and
+:c:func:`regulator_set_current_limit()` functions provide the primary
+interface for this. Both take ranges of voltages and currents, supporting
+drivers that do not require a specific value (eg, CPU frequency scaling
+normally permits the CPU to use a wider range of supply voltages at lower
+frequencies but does not require that the supply voltage be lowered). Where
+an exact value is required both minimum and maximum values should be
+identical.
+
+Callbacks
+---------
+
+Callbacks may also be registered for events such as regulation failures.
+
+Regulator driver interface
+==========================
+
+Drivers for regulator chips register the regulators with the regulator
+core, providing operations structures to the core. A notifier interface
+allows error conditions to be reported to the core.
+
+Registration should be triggered by explicit setup done by the platform,
+supplying a struct regulator_init_data for the regulator
+containing constraint and supply information.
+
+Machine interface
+=================
+
+This interface provides a way to define how regulators are connected to
+consumers on a given system and what the valid operating parameters are
+for the system.
+
+Supplies
+--------
+
+Regulator supplies are specified using struct
+:c:type:`regulator_consumer_supply`. This is done at driver registration
+time as part of the machine constraints.
+
+Constraints
+-----------
+
+As well as defining the connections the machine interface also provides
+constraints defining the operations that clients are allowed to perform
+and the parameters that may be set. This is required since generally
+regulator devices will offer more flexibility than it is safe to use on
+a given system, for example supporting higher supply voltages than the
+consumers are rated for.
+
+This is done at driver registration time` by providing a
+struct regulation_constraints.
+
+The constraints may also specify an initial configuration for the
+regulator in the constraints, which is particularly useful for use with
+static consumers.
+
+API reference
+=============
+
+Due to limitations of the kernel documentation framework and the
+existing layout of the source code the entire regulator API is
+documented here.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/regulator/consumer.h
+ :internal:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/regulator/machine.h
+ :internal:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: include/linux/regulator/driver.h
+ :internal:
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/regulator/core.c
+ :export: