The default polarity of RS485 DE signal is active high. This driver does
not handle such case properly. Currently, when a pin is multiplexed as a
UART CTS_B on boot, this pin is pulled HIGH by the i.MX UART CTS circuit,
which activates DE signal on the RS485 transceiver and thus behave as if
the RS485 was transmitting data, so the system blocks the RS485 bus when
it starts and until user application takes over. This behavior is not OK.
The problem consists of two separate parts.
First, the i.MX UART IP requires UCR1 UARTEN and UCR2 RXEN to be set for
UCR2 CTSC and CTS bits to have any effect. The UCR2 CTSC bit permits the
driver to set CTS (RTS_B or RS485 DE signal) to either level sychronous
to the internal UART IP clock. Compared to other options, like GPIO CTS
control, this has the benefit of being synchronous to the UART IP clock
and thus without glitches or bus delays. The reason for the CTS design
is likely because when the Receiver is disabled, the UART IP can never
indicate that it is ready to receive data by assering CTS signal, so
the CTS is always pulled HIGH by default.
When the port is closed by user space, imx_uart_stop_rx() clears UCR2
RXEN bit, and imx_uart_shutdown() clears UCR1 UARTEN bit. This disables
UART Receiver and UART itself, and forces CTS signal HIGH, which leads
to the RS485 bus being blocked because RS485 DE is incorrectly active.
The proposed solution for this problem is to keep the Receiver running
even after the port is closed, but in loopback mode. This disconnects
the RX FIFO input from the RXD external signal, and since UCR2 TXEN is
cleared, the UART Transmitter is disabled, so nothing can feed data in
the RX FIFO. Because the Receiver is still enabled, the UCR2 CTSC and
CTS bits still have effect and the CTS (RS485 DE) control is retained.
Note that in case of RS485 DE signal active low, there is no problem and
no special handling is necessary. The CTS signal defaults to HIGH, thus
the RS485 is by default set to Receive and the bus is not blocked.
Note that while there is the possibility to control CTS using GPIO with
either CTS polarity, this has the downside of not being synchronous to
the UART IP clock and thus glitchy and susceptible to slow DE switching.
Second, on boot, before the UART driver probe callback is called, the
driver core triggers pinctrl_init_done() and configures the IOMUXC to
default state. At this point, UCR1 UARTEN and UCR2 RXEN are both still
cleared, but UART CTS_B (RS485 DE) is configured as CTS function, thus
the RTS signal is pulled HIGH by the UART IP CTS circuit.
One part of the solution here is to enable UCR1 UARTEN and UCR2 RXEN and
UTS loopback in this driver probe callback, thus unblocking the CTSC and
CTS control early on. But this is still too late, since the pin control
is already configured and CTS has been pulled HIGH for a short period
of time.
When Linux kernel boots and this driver is bound, the pin control is set
to special "init" state if the state is available, and driver can switch
the "default" state afterward when ready. This state can be used to set
the CTS line as a GPIO in DT temporarily, and a GPIO hog can force such
GPIO to LOW, thus keeping the RS485 DE line LOW early on boot. Once the
driver takes over and UCR1 UARTEN and UCR2 RXEN and UTS loopback are all
enabled, the driver can switch to "default" pin control state and control
the CTS line as function instead. DT binding example is below:
"
&gpio6 {
rts-init-hog {
gpio-hog;
gpios = <5 0>;
output-low;
line-name = "rs485-de";
};
};
&uart5 { /* DHCOM UART2 */
pinctrl-0 = <&pinctrl_uart5>;
pinctrl-1 = <&pinctrl_uart5_init>;
pinctrl-names = "default", "init";
...
};
pinctrl_uart5_init: uart5-init-grp {
fsl,pins = <
...
MX6QDL_PAD_CSI0_DAT19__GPIO6_IO05 0x30b1
>;
};
pinctrl_uart5: uart5-grp {
fsl,pins = <
...
MX6QDL_PAD_CSI0_DAT19__UART5_CTS_B 0x30b1
>;
};
"
