Re: [PATCH v4 1/5] dt-bindings: misc: Add mikrobus-connector

Conor Dooley <conor@xxxxxxxxxx> · Tue, 19 Mar 2024 19:37:49 +0000

On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 01:07:09AM +0530, Ayush Singh wrote:
> Add DT bindings for mikroBUS interface. MikroBUS is an open standard
> developed by MikroElektronika for connecting add-on boards to
> microcontrollers or microprocessors.
> 
> mikroBUS is a connector and does not have a controller. Instead the
> software is responsible for identification of board and setting up /
> registering uart, spi, i2c, pwm and other buses. Thus it needs a way to
> get uart, spi, i2c, pwm and gpio controllers / adapters.
> 
> A mikroBUS addon board is free to leave some of the pins unused which
> are marked as NC or Not Connected.

But your binding makes everything required. Why would I need to
instantiate and connect an i2c controller to the mikroebus header if
I don't intend connecting any mikroebus devices that need one?

> Some of the pins might need to be configured as GPIOs deviating from their
> reserved purposes Eg: SHT15 Click where the SCL and SDA Pins need to be
> configured as GPIOs for the driver (drivers/hwmon/sht15.c) to work.

> For some add-on boards the driver may not take care of some additional
> signals like reset/wake-up/other. Eg: ENC28J60 click where the reset line
> (RST pin on the mikrobus port) needs to be pulled high.

What drivers do is not relevant to the binding. Describe the hardware.

> Here's the list of pins in mikroBUS connector:
> Analog - AN
> Reset - RST
> SPI Chip Select - CS
> SPI Clock - SCK
> SPI Master Input Slave Output - MISO
> SPI Master Output Slave Input - MOSI
> VCC-3.3V power - +3.3V
> Reference Ground - GND
> PWM - PWM output
> INT - Hardware Interrupt
> RX - UART Receive
> TX - UART Transmit
> SCL - I2C Clock
> SDA - I2C Data
> +5V - VCC-5V power
> GND - Reference Ground
> 
> Additionally, some new mikroBUS boards contain 1-wire EEPROM that contains
> a manifest to describe the addon board to provide plug and play
> capabilities.

My problem with this is that it purports to be some generic description
of the connector but it appears to be very centred on a particular use
case (this beagle product) with simple add-on boards or those that
support the auto-detection eeprom. For other use cases I'm at a loss for
why I'd not omit this node from my DT and treat the mikroebus connector
like any other header on my boards, where I just apply an overlay that
hooks up the device to the relevant spi/pwm/i2c/etc controllers.

I'd almost go as far as to say that this binding is misleading, because
it's worded like a complete description of the port but actually only
seems to describe a (set of) use case(s). What am I missing?

> Link: https://www.mikroe.com/mikrobus
> Link:
> https://download.mikroe.com/documents/standards/mikrobus/mikrobus-standard-specification-v200.pdf
> mikroBUS specification
> Link: https://www.mikroe.com/sht1x-click SHT15 Click
> Link: https://www.mikroe.com/eth-click ENC28J60 Click
> Link: https://www.mikroe.com/clickid ClickID
> 
> Co-developed-by: Vaishnav M A <vaishnav@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Vaishnav M A <vaishnav@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Ayush Singh <ayushdevel1325@xxxxxxxxx>

> +required:
> +  - compatible
> +  - pinctrl-0
> +  - pinctrl-1
> +  - pinctrl-2
> +  - pinctrl-3
> +  - pinctrl-4
> +  - pinctrl-5
> +  - pinctrl-6
> +  - pinctrl-7
> +  - pinctrl-8
> +  - i2c-adapter
> +  - spi-controller
> +  - spi-cs
> +  - uart
> +  - pwms
> +  - mikrobus-gpios

Oh also, you're missing properties for the supplies.