linux/Documentation/arm/interrupts.rst
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   1==========
   2Interrupts
   3==========
   4
   52.5.2-rmk5:
   6  This is the first kernel that contains a major shake up of some of the
   7  major architecture-specific subsystems.
   8
   9Firstly, it contains some pretty major changes to the way we handle the
  10MMU TLB.  Each MMU TLB variant is now handled completely separately -
  11we have TLB v3, TLB v4 (without write buffer), TLB v4 (with write buffer),
  12and finally TLB v4 (with write buffer, with I TLB invalidate entry).
  13There is more assembly code inside each of these functions, mainly to
  14allow more flexible TLB handling for the future.
  15
  16Secondly, the IRQ subsystem.
  17
  18The 2.5 kernels will be having major changes to the way IRQs are handled.
  19Unfortunately, this means that machine types that touch the irq_desc[]
  20array (basically all machine types) will break, and this means every
  21machine type that we currently have.
  22
  23Lets take an example.  On the Assabet with Neponset, we have::
  24
  25                  GPIO25                 IRR:2
  26        SA1100 ------------> Neponset -----------> SA1111
  27                                         IIR:1
  28                                      -----------> USAR
  29                                         IIR:0
  30                                      -----------> SMC9196
  31
  32The way stuff currently works, all SA1111 interrupts are mutually
  33exclusive of each other - if you're processing one interrupt from the
  34SA1111 and another comes in, you have to wait for that interrupt to
  35finish processing before you can service the new interrupt.  Eg, an
  36IDE PIO-based interrupt on the SA1111 excludes all other SA1111 and
  37SMC9196 interrupts until it has finished transferring its multi-sector
  38data, which can be a long time.  Note also that since we loop in the
  39SA1111 IRQ handler, SA1111 IRQs can hold off SMC9196 IRQs indefinitely.
  40
  41
  42The new approach brings several new ideas...
  43
  44We introduce the concept of a "parent" and a "child".  For example,
  45to the Neponset handler, the "parent" is GPIO25, and the "children"d
  46are SA1111, SMC9196 and USAR.
  47
  48We also bring the idea of an IRQ "chip" (mainly to reduce the size of
  49the irqdesc array).  This doesn't have to be a real "IC"; indeed the
  50SA11x0 IRQs are handled by two separate "chip" structures, one for
  51GPIO0-10, and another for all the rest.  It is just a container for
  52the various operations (maybe this'll change to a better name).
  53This structure has the following operations::
  54
  55  struct irqchip {
  56          /*
  57           * Acknowledge the IRQ.
  58           * If this is a level-based IRQ, then it is expected to mask the IRQ
  59           * as well.
  60           */
  61          void (*ack)(unsigned int irq);
  62          /*
  63           * Mask the IRQ in hardware.
  64           */
  65          void (*mask)(unsigned int irq);
  66          /*
  67           * Unmask the IRQ in hardware.
  68           */
  69          void (*unmask)(unsigned int irq);
  70          /*
  71           * Re-run the IRQ
  72           */
  73          void (*rerun)(unsigned int irq);
  74          /*
  75           * Set the type of the IRQ.
  76           */
  77          int (*type)(unsigned int irq, unsigned int, type);
  78  };
  79
  80ack
  81       - required.  May be the same function as mask for IRQs
  82         handled by do_level_IRQ.
  83mask
  84       - required.
  85unmask
  86       - required.
  87rerun
  88       - optional.  Not required if you're using do_level_IRQ for all
  89         IRQs that use this 'irqchip'.  Generally expected to re-trigger
  90         the hardware IRQ if possible.  If not, may call the handler
  91         directly.
  92type
  93       - optional.  If you don't support changing the type of an IRQ,
  94         it should be null so people can detect if they are unable to
  95         set the IRQ type.
  96
  97For each IRQ, we keep the following information:
  98
  99        - "disable" depth (number of disable_irq()s without enable_irq()s)
 100        - flags indicating what we can do with this IRQ (valid, probe,
 101          noautounmask) as before
 102        - status of the IRQ (probing, enable, etc)
 103        - chip
 104        - per-IRQ handler
 105        - irqaction structure list
 106
 107The handler can be one of the 3 standard handlers - "level", "edge" and
 108"simple", or your own specific handler if you need to do something special.
 109
 110The "level" handler is what we currently have - its pretty simple.
 111"edge" knows about the brokenness of such IRQ implementations - that you
 112need to leave the hardware IRQ enabled while processing it, and queueing
 113further IRQ events should the IRQ happen again while processing.  The
 114"simple" handler is very basic, and does not perform any hardware
 115manipulation, nor state tracking.  This is useful for things like the
 116SMC9196 and USAR above.
 117
 118So, what's changed?
 119===================
 120
 1211. Machine implementations must not write to the irqdesc array.
 122
 1232. New functions to manipulate the irqdesc array.  The first 4 are expected
 124   to be useful only to machine specific code.  The last is recommended to
 125   only be used by machine specific code, but may be used in drivers if
 126   absolutely necessary.
 127
 128        set_irq_chip(irq,chip)
 129                Set the mask/unmask methods for handling this IRQ
 130
 131        set_irq_handler(irq,handler)
 132                Set the handler for this IRQ (level, edge, simple)
 133
 134        set_irq_chained_handler(irq,handler)
 135                Set a "chained" handler for this IRQ - automatically
 136                enables this IRQ (eg, Neponset and SA1111 handlers).
 137
 138        set_irq_flags(irq,flags)
 139                Set the valid/probe/noautoenable flags.
 140
 141        set_irq_type(irq,type)
 142                Set active the IRQ edge(s)/level.  This replaces the
 143                SA1111 INTPOL manipulation, and the set_GPIO_IRQ_edge()
 144                function.  Type should be one of IRQ_TYPE_xxx defined in
 145                <linux/irq.h>
 146
 1473. set_GPIO_IRQ_edge() is obsolete, and should be replaced by set_irq_type.
 148
 1494. Direct access to SA1111 INTPOL is deprecated.  Use set_irq_type instead.
 150
 1515. A handler is expected to perform any necessary acknowledgement of the
 152   parent IRQ via the correct chip specific function.  For instance, if
 153   the SA1111 is directly connected to a SA1110 GPIO, then you should
 154   acknowledge the SA1110 IRQ each time you re-read the SA1111 IRQ status.
 155
 1566. For any child which doesn't have its own IRQ enable/disable controls
 157   (eg, SMC9196), the handler must mask or acknowledge the parent IRQ
 158   while the child handler is called, and the child handler should be the
 159   "simple" handler (not "edge" nor "level").  After the handler completes,
 160   the parent IRQ should be unmasked, and the status of all children must
 161   be re-checked for pending events.  (see the Neponset IRQ handler for
 162   details).
 163
 1647. fixup_irq() is gone, as is `arch/arm/mach-*/include/mach/irq.h`
 165
 166Please note that this will not solve all problems - some of them are
 167hardware based.  Mixing level-based and edge-based IRQs on the same
 168parent signal (eg neponset) is one such area where a software based
 169solution can't provide the full answer to low IRQ latency.
 170