[U-Boot] [PATCH] mmc: Avoid HS400 mode when accessing boot partitions

Mon Jun 17 09:09:40 UTC 2019

On 15/06/2019 17:15, Marek Vasut wrote:
> On 6/14/19 5:27 PM, Jean-Jacques Hiblot wrote:
>> Marek, Faiz,
>>
>> On 11/06/2019 17:59, Faiz Abbas wrote:
>>> Hi Marek,
>>>
>>> On 11/06/19 3:34 PM, Marek Vasut wrote:
>>>> On 6/11/19 10:12 AM, Faiz Abbas wrote:
>>>>> Peng, Marek,
>>>>>
>>>>> On 11/06/19 6:47 AM, Peng Fan wrote:
>>>>>>> partitions
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 6/10/19 7:59 AM, Peng Fan wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] [PATCH] mmc: Avoid HS400 mode when accessing
>>>>>>>>> boot partitions
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hi Marek, Peng,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On 03/06/19 12:04 PM, Peng Fan wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Subject: [PATCH] mmc: Avoid HS400 mode when accessing boot
>>>>>>>>>>> partitions
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> According to JEDEC JESD84-B51.pdf section 6.3.3 Boot operation ,
>>>>>>>>>>> HS200 & HS400 mode is not supported during boot operation. The
>>>>>>>>>>> U-Boot code currently only applies this restriction to HS200
>>>>>>>>>>> mode,
>>>>>>>>>>> extend this to
>>>>>>>>>>> HS400 mode as well.
>>>>>>>>> The spec in section 6.3.3 (according to my understanding) is
>>>>>>>>> talking
>>>>>>>>> about "boot operation" which is a way of getting data from the the
>>>>>>>>> eMMC without going through the Device identification mode (Section
>>>>>>>>> 6.4.4) i.e. without sending any commands. All the host has to do is
>>>>>>>>> hold the command line low in Pre-Idle mode to automatically receive
>>>>>>>>> data at the preconfigured frequency and bus width.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> When U-boot is accessing the partition, it has already gone through
>>>>>>>>> the Device identification mode and is in data transfer mode
>>>>>>>>> (i.e. it
>>>>>>>>> needs to send commands for read/write to happen). In this case, we
>>>>>>>>> need to switch the partition in Extended CSD to access the boot
>>>>>>>>> partition (Section 6.2.5). The spec doesn't say anything about
>>>>>>>>> HS200 and
>>>>>>> HS400 not being supported here.
>>>>>>>> Yes, the spec does not mention this. It only mentions HS200/400 not
>>>>>>>> supported during boot operation.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Also, I don't see linux kernel switching down speed when trying to
>>>>>>>>> access a boot partition (unless its being very sneaky about it). So
>>>>>>>>> if you are seeing issues with accessing boot partitions at
>>>>>>>>> HS200/HS400 then you should probably look at how linux code is
>>>>>>>>> working
>>>>>>> instead.
>>>>>>>> There might be bug in U-Boot code.
>>>>>>> So are we gonna leave this inconsistency in for current release or
>>>>>>> what's it
>>>>>>> gonna be ? Like I said, we're in rc3, it's fine to do bigger
>>>>>>> changes in next
>>>>>>> release, but we should at least fix this in current release.
>>>>>> I'll pick up your patch in this release.
>>>>>>
>>>>> The issue that Marek is facing is not a regression, is it? Are we
>>>>> really
>>>>> going to merge something that we know to be wrong just so we are
>>>>> consistently wrong?
>>>> First of all, you established this is "wrong" without any real backing
>>>> except for your interpretation of the specification. I would still like
>>>> to hear from Jean the real reason why he added this filtering in the
>>>> first place.
>>> I think Peng agrees with my interpretation. The backing for it being
>>> "right" is also JJ's and your interpretation of spec. The additional
>>> justification that I am trying to give is that there is no code to
>>> fallback in kernel and I have observed it working in kernel with no
>>> issues. I needed your observations (with any HS200/HS400 supporting
>>> platform) in kernel for additional data points.
>>>
>>>> That said, we're in rc4 , the release is just around the corner. I would
>>>> like to avoid big changes in the MMC subsystem , or any subsystem for
>>>> that matter. That's for next release , and if you have a patch for next,
>>>> please post it, I am happy to test it on the hardware I have available.
>>> I am not saying we try to fix it before this release. All I am saying is
>>> that we don't mask real errors (none of which are regressions) with this
>>> "fix" that we are not even sure of.
>>>
>>>> Also note that this patch does not have any impact on general use case,
>>>> the regular bulk of the eMMC can be accessed at HS200/HS400, it's just
>>>> the boot partitions which are accessed in HS52 or lower.
>>> Exceedingly, the general usecase is to put boot images in boot partition
>>> and root filesystem in the user data area. In that case, the boot area
>>> is all that will be accessed in SPL at HS52 even if
>>> CONFIG_SPL_MMC_HS200/HS400 is enabled.
>>>
>>>> However, right now, the behavior is not consistent between HS200 and
>>>> HS400 modes, and I would very much like to have it consistent in the
>>>> upcoming release.
>>> I don't think consistency is a big enough reason to make this change. If
>>> my interpretation is correct, you would be masking real issues for
>>> everyone with this change and any platforms which enable HS400/HS200
>>> will be blissfully unaware that they are not accessing data at the
>>> required speed. If things are failing for others, we can get their
>>> datapoints in kernel as well.
>>>
>>> Having said that, if the maintainer still wants to pull this fix as is,
>>> I would at least change the commit message to reflect our uncertainty
>>> here so people are not mislead by this patch.
>>>
>>>>> Marek, I understand you do not want to debug this right now but this
>>>>> patch will 1) Mislead people into thinking that we know what we are
>>>>> doing (two patches went in with pretty confident patch descriptions)
>>>>> and
>>>>> 2) Mask issues for people who could take the time to help debug this.
>>>> Wrong, I want to debug this, I just don't want to do big changes in the
>>>> upcoming release this late in the release cycle. But if you propose a
>>>> patch for next, I am happy to test it on the hardware I have available.
>>>> Can you send such a patch ?
>>>>
>>> Agreed on the no big changes this release. Hopefully we can also agree
>>> on not having *this* change in the release either. I do not have a fix
>>> yet but plan to look into this next week.
>>
>> Have you tried to use the boot partitions with HS200 lately ?
>>
>> I'm running a test on a DRA76 and haven't seen any issue. I wonder why
>> it didn't work properly when I tested it back then.
>>
>> I also rand the same test with Linux and checked that the clock was also
>> at 192 MHz
>>
>>
>> test context:
>>
>> The boot partition (8MB) is accessed in HS200 mode (real freq is
>> measured at 192 MHz with a scope)
>>
>> The data is fresh random data
>>
>> The test command is:
>>
>> setenv test_boot_part 'random 0x81000000 0x800000; mmc write 81000000 0
>> 0x4000; mmc read 82000000 0 0x4000; cmp.b 81000000 82000000 0x800000' ;
>> while run test_boot_part ; do echo -------------; done
>>
>> I'll post the patch for the 'random' command.
> Do you think you can add a test.py test for this ? Then I can
> continuously run this test on the boards I have available. It should
> also propagate onto nvidia and xilinx boards, which I think do HS modes too.
>
>> If we could get this tested OK on most of the platforms that support
>> HS200, I suggest that we remove this limitation.
> Yes, but not this close to the release. It might work on TI board(s),
> but it could very well break on other boards which we cannot test. I had
> stability issues with those HS200/HS400 modes, so I am seriously
> concerned about removing this limitation this close to the release.

I agree. I would rather keep the limitation in place for this release as 
well

When all tests are in place, we will be able to confidently remove then 
during the next cycle.

>
> I would much rather see a release where the eMMCs work stable, albeit
> slower, possibly with a downstream patch in some BSP , then a release
> where the eMMCs randomly fail when loading data from them .
>
> I am happy to reword the commit message if that helps ?
>