To read any data from ARconnect we have special interface which includes two AUX registers: MCIP_CMD and MCIP_READBACK. We write command to MCIP_CMD and read data from MCIP_READBACK after that. We have only one instance of this registers per cluster, so we need to held global lock before access them. This lock is defined in arch/arc/kernel/mcip.c To read GFRC value we also use?MCIP_CMD/MCIP_READBACK pair, but? we take only local lock instead of global 'mcip_lock' lock: ---------->[drivers/clocksource/arc_timer.c]<---------- static u64 arc_read_gfrc(struct clocksource *cs) { unsigned long flags; u32 l, h; local_irq_save(flags); __mcip_cmd(CMD_GFRC_READ_LO, 0); l = read_aux_reg(ARC_REG_MCIP_READBACK); __mcip_cmd(CMD_GFRC_READ_HI, 0); h = read_aux_reg(ARC_REG_MCIP_READBACK); local_irq_restore(flags); return (((u64)h) << 32) | l; } -------------------------->8--------------------------- So we can break any command (like inter core interrupt send) which uses MCIP_CMD/MCIP_READBACK pair when we read time from GFRC. One possible solution is to create function like gfrc_read() in mcip.c which will use global 'mcip_lock' and call it from current 'arc_read_gfrc' function. Or we can create a wrapper like 'mcip_read' in?arch/arc/kernel/mcip.c with next functionality: ------->8-------- u32 mcip_read(u32 cmd) { u32 ret; raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&mcip_lock); __mcip_cmd(cmd, 0); ret = read_aux_reg(ARC_REG_MCIP_READBACK); raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&mcip_lock); return ret; } ------->8-------- -- ?Eugeniy Paltsev