[U-Boot-Users] interrupts.s/udelay accuracy.

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <FD2AC9A020DDD51194710008C7089B20053D4C16 at dlee17.itg.ti.com> you wrote:
>
> About how accurate in practice does the udelay() & other time base functions
> have to be?  especially for ethernet/networking devices?  I've currently got

Have to be? Typically these functions are used  either  to  implement
some  timeouts  or  delays,  which  usually  have some reserve, or to
implement user interface stull like the count down or sleep  commands
-  which  is  not critical either. So probably nobody would notice if
the timer was 20% fast or slow.

But then, these services are derived from the  timebase,  which  runs
with  the  same  precision as your clocks. Only for very small delays
(like if you try to get a bit-banging I2C driver  with  a  bit  clock
over  100 kHz) you will notice that timings are inaccurate because of
the function call overhead.

So - why are you asking? There is no problem  with  the  accuracy  of
udelay() etc.

> enough of the basics ported for my arm925/omap based board such that it
> comes to a u-boot shell, and things like sleep x work....I was thinking
> about moving on to getting my ethernet device working, and am a little

What has udelay() or other timing functions to do with ethernet?

> uneasy about the way I (and it appears several others) have hacked the time
> conversions.  Does gcc provide some nice 64 bit integer manipulation
> libraries which aren't huge?  If so I'd be tempted to bring in some code

Which sort of libraries do you need? If you really think you must you
could use "log long" data types, but I don't see any need for that.

> which does the right thing and doesn't have to worry about integer
> over/under flows.

What exactly are you talking about?

Maybe you should explain the problem you are trying to solve. I  feel
you must be on a wrong track...


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd at denx.de
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