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diff --git a/Documentation/pwm.txt b/Documentation/pwm.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..554290ebab94 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/pwm.txt @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) interface + +This provides an overview about the Linux PWM interface + +PWMs are commonly used for controlling LEDs, fans or vibrators in +cell phones. PWMs with a fixed purpose have no need implementing +the Linux PWM API (although they could). However, PWMs are often +found as discrete devices on SoCs which have no fixed purpose. It's +up to the board designer to connect them to LEDs or fans. To provide +this kind of flexibility the generic PWM API exists. + +Identifying PWMs +---------------- + +Users of the legacy PWM API use unique IDs to refer to PWM devices. + +Instead of referring to a PWM device via its unique ID, board setup code +should instead register a static mapping that can be used to match PWM +consumers to providers, as given in the following example: + + static struct pwm_lookup board_pwm_lookup[] = { + PWM_LOOKUP("tegra-pwm", 0, "pwm-backlight", NULL), + }; + + static void __init board_init(void) + { + ... + pwm_add_table(board_pwm_lookup, ARRAY_SIZE(board_pwm_lookup)); + ... + } + +Using PWMs +---------- + +Legacy users can request a PWM device using pwm_request() and free it +after usage with pwm_free(). + +New users should use the pwm_get() function and pass to it the consumer +device or a consumer name. pwm_put() is used to free the PWM device. + +After being requested a PWM has to be configured using: + +int pwm_config(struct pwm_device *pwm, int duty_ns, int period_ns); + +To start/stop toggling the PWM output use pwm_enable()/pwm_disable(). + +Implementing a PWM driver +------------------------- + +Currently there are two ways to implement pwm drivers. Traditionally +there only has been the barebone API meaning that each driver has +to implement the pwm_*() functions itself. This means that it's impossible +to have multiple PWM drivers in the system. For this reason it's mandatory +for new drivers to use the generic PWM framework. + +A new PWM controller/chip can be added using pwmchip_add() and removed +again with pwmchip_remove(). pwmchip_add() takes a filled in struct +pwm_chip as argument which provides a description of the PWM chip, the +number of PWM devices provider by the chip and the chip-specific +implementation of the supported PWM operations to the framework. + +Locking +------- + +The PWM core list manipulations are protected by a mutex, so pwm_request() +and pwm_free() may not be called from an atomic context. Currently the +PWM core does not enforce any locking to pwm_enable(), pwm_disable() and +pwm_config(), so the calling context is currently driver specific. This +is an issue derived from the former barebone API and should be fixed soon. + +Helpers +------- + +Currently a PWM can only be configured with period_ns and duty_ns. For several +use cases freq_hz and duty_percent might be better. Instead of calculating +this in your driver please consider adding appropriate helpers to the framework. |