+
+The advantage of this DMABUF based interface vs. the fileio
+interface, is that it avoids an extra copy of the data between the
+kernel and userspace. This is particularly userful for high-speed
+devices which produce several megabytes or even gigabytes of data
per
+second.
+
+The data in this DMABUF interface is managed at the granularity of
+DMABUF objects. Reducing the granularity from byte level to block
level
+is done to reduce the userspace-kernelspace synchronization
overhead
+since performing syscalls for each byte at a few Mbps is just not
+feasible.
+
+This of course leads to a slightly increased latency. For this
reason an
+application can choose the size of the DMABUFs as well as how many
it
+allocates. E.g. two DMABUFs would be a traditional double buffering
+scheme. But using a higher number might be necessary to avoid
+underflow/overflow situations in the presence of scheduling
latencies.
+
+2. User API
+===========
+
+``IIO_BUFFER_DMABUF_ALLOC_IOCTL(struct iio_dmabuf_alloc_req *)``
+----------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Each call will allocate a new DMABUF object. The return value (if
not
+a negative errno value as error) will be the file descriptor of
the new
+DMABUF.
+
+``IIO_BUFFER_DMABUF_ENQUEUE_IOCTL(struct iio_dmabuf *)``
+--------------------------------------------------------
+
+Place the DMABUF object into the queue pending for hardware
process.
+
+These two IOCTLs have to be performed on the IIO buffer's file
+descriptor (either opened from the corresponding /dev/iio:deviceX,
or
+obtained using the `IIO_BUFFER_GET_FD_IOCTL` ioctl).
+
+3. Usage
+========
+
+To access the data stored in a block by userspace the block must be
+mapped to the process's memory. This is done by calling mmap() on
the
+DMABUF's file descriptor.
+
+Before accessing the data through the map, you must use the
+DMA_BUF_IOCTL_SYNC(struct dma_buf_sync *) ioctl, with the
+DMA_BUF_SYNC_START flag, to make sure that the data is available.
+This call may block until the hardware is done with this block.
Once
+you are done reading or writing the data, you must use this ioctl
again
+with the DMA_BUF_SYNC_END flag, before enqueueing the DMABUF to the
+kernel's queue.
+
+If you need to know when the hardware is done with a DMABUF, you
can
+poll its file descriptor for the EPOLLOUT event.
+
+Finally, to destroy a DMABUF object, simply call close() on its
file
+descriptor.
+
+For more information about manipulating DMABUF objects, see:
:ref:`dma-buf`.
+
+A typical workflow for the new interface is:
+
+ for block in blocks:
+ DMABUF_ALLOC block
+ mmap block
+
+ enable buffer
+
+ while !done
+ for block in blocks:
+ DMABUF_ENQUEUE block
+
+ DMABUF_SYNC_START block
+ process data
+ DMABUF_SYNC_END block
+
+ disable buffer
+
+ for block in blocks:
+ close block
diff --git a/Documentation/iio/index.rst
b/Documentation/iio/index.rst
index 58b7a4ebac51..9ce799fbf262 100644
--- a/Documentation/iio/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/iio/index.rst
@@ -10,3 +10,5 @@ Industrial I/O
iio_configfs
ep93xx_adc
+
+ dmabuf_api
