Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] dt-bindings: pinctrl: airoha: Add EN7581 pinctrl controller

[Christian Marangi <ansuelsmth@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Aug 23, 2024 at 05:14:30PM +0100, Conor Dooley wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 10:50:52PM +0200, Benjamin Larsson wrote:
> > On 22/08/2024 18:06, Conor Dooley wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Hi.
> > 
> > > before looking at v1:
> > > I would really like to see an explanation for why this is a correct
> > > model of the hardware as part of the commit message. To me this screams
> > > syscon/MFD and instead of describing this as a child of a syscon and
> > > using regmap to access it you're doing whatever this is...
> > 
> > Can you post a link to a good example dts that uses syscon/MFD ?
> > 
> > It is not only pinctrl, pwm and gpio that are entangled in each other. A
> > good example would help with developing a proper implementation.
> 
> Off the top of my head, no unfortunately. Maybe Rob or Krzk have a good
> example. I would suggest to start by looking at drivers within gpio or
> pinctrl that use syscon_to_regmap() where the argument is sourced from
> either of_node->parent or dev.parent->of_node (which you use depends on
> whether or not you have a child node or not).
> 
> I recently had some questions myself for Rob about child nodes for mfd
> devices and when they were suitable to use:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240815200003.GA2956351-robh@xxxxxxxxxx/
> 
> Following Rob's line of thought, I'd kinda expect an mfd driver to create
> the devices for gpio and pwm using devm_mfd_add_devices() and the
> pinctrl to have a child node.

Just to not get confused and staring to focus on the wrong kind of
API/too complex solution, I would suggest to check the example from
Lorenzo.

The pinctrl/gpio is an entire separate block and is mapped separately.
What is problematic is that chip SCU is a mix and address are not in
order and is required by many devices. (clock, pinctrl, gpio...)

IMHO a mfd is overkill and wouldn't suite the task. MDF still support a
single big region and in our case we need to map 2 different one (gpio
AND chip SCU) (or for clock SCU and chip SCU)

Similar problem is present in many other place and syscon is just for
the task.

Simple proposed solution is:
- chip SCU entirely mapped and we use syscon
- pinctrl mapped and reference chip SCU by phandle
- pwm a child of pinctrl as it's scrambled in the pinctrl mapped regs

Hope this can clear any confusion.

-- 
	Ansuel