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-======================================
-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,
- 50000, PWM_POLARITY_NORMAL),
- };
-
- 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. Managed
-variants of these functions, devm_pwm_get() and devm_pwm_put(), also exist.
-
-After being requested, a PWM has to be configured using::
-
- int pwm_apply_state(struct pwm_device *pwm, struct pwm_state *state);
-
-This API controls both the PWM period/duty_cycle config and the
-enable/disable state.
-
-The pwm_config(), pwm_enable() and pwm_disable() functions are just wrappers
-around pwm_apply_state() and should not be used if the user wants to change
-several parameter at once. For example, if you see pwm_config() and
-pwm_{enable,disable}() calls in the same function, this probably means you
-should switch to pwm_apply_state().
-
-The PWM user API also allows one to query the PWM state with pwm_get_state().
-
-In addition to the PWM state, the PWM API also exposes PWM arguments, which
-are the reference PWM config one should use on this PWM.
-PWM arguments are usually platform-specific and allows the PWM user to only
-care about dutycycle relatively to the full period (like, duty = 50% of the
-period). struct pwm_args contains 2 fields (period and polarity) and should
-be used to set the initial PWM config (usually done in the probe function
-of the PWM user). PWM arguments are retrieved with pwm_get_args().
-
-Using PWMs with the sysfs interface
------------------------------------
-
-If CONFIG_SYSFS is enabled in your kernel configuration a simple sysfs
-interface is provided to use the PWMs from userspace. It is exposed at
-/sys/class/pwm/. Each probed PWM controller/chip will be exported as
-pwmchipN, where N is the base of the PWM chip. Inside the directory you
-will find:
-
- npwm
- The number of PWM channels this chip supports (read-only).
-
- export
- Exports a PWM channel for use with sysfs (write-only).
-
- unexport
- Unexports a PWM channel from sysfs (write-only).
-
-The PWM channels are numbered using a per-chip index from 0 to npwm-1.
-
-When a PWM channel is exported a pwmX directory will be created in the
-pwmchipN directory it is associated with, where X is the number of the
-channel that was exported. The following properties will then be available:
-
- period
- The total period of the PWM signal (read/write).
- Value is in nanoseconds and is the sum of the active and inactive
- time of the PWM.
-
- duty_cycle
- The active time of the PWM signal (read/write).
- Value is in nanoseconds and must be less than the period.
-
- polarity
- Changes the polarity of the PWM signal (read/write).
- Writes to this property only work if the PWM chip supports changing
- the polarity. The polarity can only be changed if the PWM is not
- enabled. Value is the string "normal" or "inversed".
-
- enable
- Enable/disable the PWM signal (read/write).
-
- - 0 - disabled
- - 1 - enabled
-
-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 provided by the chip and the chip-specific
-implementation of the supported PWM operations to the framework.
-
-When implementing polarity support in a PWM driver, make sure to respect the
-signal conventions in the PWM framework. By definition, normal polarity
-characterizes a signal starts high for the duration of the duty cycle and
-goes low for the remainder of the period. Conversely, a signal with inversed
-polarity starts low for the duration of the duty cycle and goes high for the
-remainder of the period.
-
-Drivers are encouraged to implement ->apply() instead of the legacy
-->enable(), ->disable() and ->config() methods. Doing that should provide
-atomicity in the PWM config workflow, which is required when the PWM controls
-a critical device (like a regulator).
-
-The implementation of ->get_state() (a method used to retrieve initial PWM
-state) is also encouraged for the same reason: letting the PWM user know
-about the current PWM state would allow him to avoid glitches.
-
-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.