[RFC PATCH v2 0/3] RFC: tiny-dm: Proposal for using driver model in SPL

Simon Glass sjg at chromium.org
Thu Jul 2 23:10:01 CEST 2020


This series provides a proposed enhancement to driver model to reduce
overhead in SPL.

These patches should not be reviewed other than to comment on the
approach. The code is all lumped together in a few patches and so cannot
be applied as is.

For now, the source tree is available at:

   https://gitlab.denx.de/u-boot/custodians/u-boot-dm/-/tree/dtoc-working

Comments welcome!

Benefits (good news)
--------------------

As an example of the impact of tiny-dm, chromebook_jerry is converted to
use it. This shows approximately a 30% reduction in code and data size and
a 85% reduction in malloc() space over of-platdata:

   text	   data	    bss	    dec	    hex	filename
  25248	   1836	     12	  27096	   69d8	spl/u-boot-spl (original with DT)
  19727	   3436	     12	  23175	   5a87	spl/u-boot-spl (OF_PLATDATA)
    78%    187%    100%     86%         as %age of original

  13784	   1408	     12	  15204	   3b64	spl/u-boot-spl (SPL_TINY)
    70%     41%    100%     66%         as %age of platdata
    55%     77%    100%     56%         as %age of original

SPL malloc() usage drops from 944 bytes (OF_PLATDATA) to 116 (SPL_TINY).

Overall the 'overhead' of tiny-dm is much less than the full driver
model. Code size is currently about 600 bytes for these functions on
Thumb2:

   00000054 T tiny_dev_probe
   00000034 T tiny_dev_get_by_drvdata
   00000024 T tiny_dev_find
   0000001a T tiny_dev_get
   0000003c T tinydev_alloc_data
   0000002a t tinydev_lookup_data
   00000022 T tinydev_ensure_data
   00000014 T tinydev_get_data
   00000004 T tinydev_get_parent

Effort (bad news)
-----------------

Unfortunately it is quite a bit of work to convert drivers over to
tiny-dm. First, the of-platdata conversion must be done. But on top of
that, tiny-dm needs entirely separate code for dealing with devices. This
means that instead of 'struct udevice' and 'struct uclass' there is just
'struct tinydev'. Each driver and uclass must be modified to support
both, pulling common code into internal static functions.

Another option
--------------

Note: It is assumed that any board that is space-contrained should use
of-platdata in SPL (see doc/driver-model/of-plat.rst). This is shown to
reduce device-tree overhead by approximately 4KB.

Designing tiny-dm has suggested a number of things that could be changed
in the current driver model to make it more space-efficient for TPL and
SPL. The ones with least impact on driver code are (CS=reduces code size,
DS=reduces data size):

   CS - drop driver_bind() and create devices (struct udevice) at
        build-time
   CS - allocate all device- and uclass-private data at build-time
   CS - remove all but the basic operations for each uclass (e.g. SPI
        flash only supports reading)
   DS - use 8-bit indexes instead of 32/64-bit pointers for device
        pointers possible since these are created at build-time)
   DS - use singly-linked lists
   DS - use 16-bit offsets to private data, instead of 32/64-bit pointers
        (possible since it is all in SRAM relative to malloc() base,
        presumably word-aligned and < 256KB)
   DS - move private pointers into a separate data structure so that NULLs
        are not stored
   CS / DS - Combine req_seq and seq and calculate the new value at
        build-time

More difficult are:

   DS - drop some of the lesser-used driver and uclass methods
   DS - drop all uclass methods except init()
   DS - drop all driver methods except probe()
   CS / DS - drop uclasses and require drivers to manually call uclass
        functions

Even with all of this we would not reach tiny-dm and it would muddy up the
driver-model datas structures. But we might come close to tiny-dm on size
and there are some advantages:

- much of the benefit would apply to all boards that use of-platdata (i.e.
  with very little effort on behalf of board maintainers)
- the impact on the code base is much less (we keep a single, unified
  driver mode in SPL and U-Boot proper)

Overall I think it is worth looking at this option. While it doesn't have
the 'nuclear' impact of tiny-dm, neither does it mess with the U-Boot
driver code as much and it is easier to learn.

Changes in v2:
- Various updates, and ported to chromebook_jerry (rockchip)

Simon Glass (3):
  dm: Driver and uclass changes for tiny-dm
  dm: Arch-specific changes for tiny-dm
  dm: Core changes for tiny-dm

 arch/arm/dts/rk3288-u-boot.dtsi               |  17 +-
 arch/arm/dts/rk3288-veyron.dtsi               |  26 +-
 arch/arm/dts/rk3288.dtsi                      |   3 +
 arch/arm/include/asm/arch-rockchip/clock.h    |   9 +
 .../include/asm/arch-rockchip/sdram_rk3288.h  |  21 ++
 arch/arm/include/asm/arch-rockchip/spi.h      |   1 +
 arch/arm/include/asm/io.h                     |  18 +
 arch/arm/mach-rockchip/rk3288/clk_rk3288.c    |  46 +++
 arch/arm/mach-rockchip/rk3288/rk3288.c        |   2 +
 arch/arm/mach-rockchip/rk3288/syscon_rk3288.c |  45 +--
 arch/arm/mach-rockchip/sdram.c                |  33 +-
 arch/sandbox/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds               |  12 +
 arch/sandbox/dts/sandbox.dts                  |   3 +-
 arch/sandbox/dts/sandbox.dtsi                 |   2 +-
 arch/x86/cpu/apollolake/cpu_spl.c             |   5 +-
 arch/x86/cpu/apollolake/uart.c                |  56 ++++
 arch/x86/dts/chromebook_coral.dts             |   1 +
 arch/x86/lib/tpl.c                            |   4 +-
 board/Synology/ds109/ds109.c                  |   3 +-
 common/console.c                              |   2 +-
 common/log.c                                  |  36 +-
 common/malloc_simple.c                        |  31 ++
 common/spl/spl.c                              |  17 +-
 common/spl/spl_spi.c                          |  91 +++--
 configs/chromebook_coral_defconfig            |   1 +
 configs/chromebook_jerry_defconfig            |  11 +
 configs/rock2_defconfig                       |   3 +
 doc/develop/debugging.rst                     |  35 ++
 doc/driver-model/tiny-dm.rst                  | 315 +++++++++++++++++
 drivers/clk/Kconfig                           |  54 +++
 drivers/clk/Makefile                          |   4 +-
 drivers/clk/clk-uclass.c                      |  53 ++-
 drivers/clk/rockchip/clk_rk3288.c             | 106 ++++--
 drivers/core/Kconfig                          | 106 ++++++
 drivers/core/Makefile                         |   3 +
 drivers/core/of_extra.c                       |  49 ++-
 drivers/core/regmap.c                         |   3 +-
 drivers/core/syscon-uclass.c                  |  68 +++-
 drivers/core/tiny.c                           | 249 ++++++++++++++
 drivers/mtd/spi/Kconfig                       |  18 +
 drivers/mtd/spi/sf-uclass.c                   |  76 +++++
 drivers/mtd/spi/sf_probe.c                    |   4 +
 drivers/mtd/spi/spi-nor-tiny.c                | 166 ++++++++-
 drivers/ram/Kconfig                           |  18 +
 drivers/ram/ram-uclass.c                      |  12 +
 drivers/ram/rockchip/sdram_rk3188.c           |   2 +-
 drivers/ram/rockchip/sdram_rk322x.c           |   2 +-
 drivers/ram/rockchip/sdram_rk3288.c           | 231 ++++++++-----
 drivers/ram/rockchip/sdram_rk3328.c           |   2 +-
 drivers/ram/rockchip/sdram_rk3399.c           |   2 +-
 drivers/reset/reset-rockchip.c                |   4 +-
 drivers/serial/Kconfig                        |  38 +++
 drivers/serial/ns16550.c                      | 195 +++++++++--
 drivers/serial/sandbox.c                      |  59 +++-
 drivers/serial/serial-uclass.c                |  77 +++++
 drivers/serial/serial_omap.c                  |   2 +-
 drivers/serial/serial_rockchip.c              |  59 ++++
 drivers/spi/Kconfig                           |  18 +
 drivers/spi/Makefile                          |   2 +
 drivers/spi/rk_spi.c                          | 301 ++++++++++++-----
 drivers/spi/spi-uclass.c                      |  77 +++++
 drivers/sysreset/Kconfig                      |  18 +
 drivers/sysreset/sysreset-uclass.c            | 124 ++++---
 drivers/sysreset/sysreset_rockchip.c          |  61 +++-
 include/asm-generic/global_data.h             |   7 +-
 include/clk-uclass.h                          |  11 +
 include/clk.h                                 |  32 +-
 include/dm/device.h                           | 121 +++++++
 include/dm/of_extra.h                         |   6 +
 include/dm/platdata.h                         |  20 +-
 include/dm/tiny_struct.h                      |  42 +++
 include/linker_lists.h                        |   6 +
 include/linux/mtd/mtd.h                       |  23 +-
 include/linux/mtd/spi-nor.h                   |  22 ++
 include/log.h                                 |   6 +
 include/malloc.h                              |   3 +
 include/ns16550.h                             |   7 +-
 include/ram.h                                 |  25 ++
 include/regmap.h                              |   4 +-
 include/serial.h                              |  45 ++-
 include/spi.h                                 |  31 ++
 include/spi_flash.h                           |   7 +
 include/spl.h                                 |   8 +-
 include/syscon.h                              |   2 +
 include/sysreset.h                            |   9 +
 scripts/Makefile.spl                          |   6 +-
 tools/dtoc/dtb_platdata.py                    | 316 +++++++++++++++---
 tools/dtoc/dtoc_test_simple.dts               |  12 +-
 tools/dtoc/fdt.py                             |   7 +-
 tools/dtoc/main.py                            |   9 +-
 tools/dtoc/test_dtoc.py                       |  91 ++++-
 tools/patman/tools.py                         |   4 +-
 92 files changed, 3454 insertions(+), 540 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 doc/develop/debugging.rst
 create mode 100644 doc/driver-model/tiny-dm.rst
 create mode 100644 drivers/core/tiny.c
 create mode 100644 include/dm/tiny_struct.h

-- 
2.27.0.212.ge8ba1cc988-goog



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