pwm.rst 7.3 KB

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  1. ======================================
  2. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) interface
  3. ======================================
  4. This provides an overview about the Linux PWM interface
  5. PWMs are commonly used for controlling LEDs, fans or vibrators in
  6. cell phones. PWMs with a fixed purpose have no need implementing
  7. the Linux PWM API (although they could). However, PWMs are often
  8. found as discrete devices on SoCs which have no fixed purpose. It's
  9. up to the board designer to connect them to LEDs or fans. To provide
  10. this kind of flexibility the generic PWM API exists.
  11. Identifying PWMs
  12. ----------------
  13. Users of the legacy PWM API use unique IDs to refer to PWM devices.
  14. Instead of referring to a PWM device via its unique ID, board setup code
  15. should instead register a static mapping that can be used to match PWM
  16. consumers to providers, as given in the following example::
  17. static struct pwm_lookup board_pwm_lookup[] = {
  18. PWM_LOOKUP("tegra-pwm", 0, "pwm-backlight", NULL,
  19. 50000, PWM_POLARITY_NORMAL),
  20. };
  21. static void __init board_init(void)
  22. {
  23. ...
  24. pwm_add_table(board_pwm_lookup, ARRAY_SIZE(board_pwm_lookup));
  25. ...
  26. }
  27. Using PWMs
  28. ----------
  29. Legacy users can request a PWM device using pwm_request() and free it
  30. after usage with pwm_free().
  31. New users should use the pwm_get() function and pass to it the consumer
  32. device or a consumer name. pwm_put() is used to free the PWM device. Managed
  33. variants of the getter, devm_pwm_get() and devm_fwnode_pwm_get(), also exist.
  34. After being requested, a PWM has to be configured using::
  35. int pwm_apply_state(struct pwm_device *pwm, struct pwm_state *state);
  36. This API controls both the PWM period/duty_cycle config and the
  37. enable/disable state.
  38. As a consumer, don't rely on the output's state for a disabled PWM. If it's
  39. easily possible, drivers are supposed to emit the inactive state, but some
  40. drivers cannot. If you rely on getting the inactive state, use .duty_cycle=0,
  41. .enabled=true.
  42. There is also a usage_power setting: If set, the PWM driver is only required to
  43. maintain the power output but has more freedom regarding signal form.
  44. If supported by the driver, the signal can be optimized, for example to improve
  45. EMI by phase shifting the individual channels of a chip.
  46. The pwm_config(), pwm_enable() and pwm_disable() functions are just wrappers
  47. around pwm_apply_state() and should not be used if the user wants to change
  48. several parameter at once. For example, if you see pwm_config() and
  49. pwm_{enable,disable}() calls in the same function, this probably means you
  50. should switch to pwm_apply_state().
  51. The PWM user API also allows one to query the PWM state that was passed to the
  52. last invocation of pwm_apply_state() using pwm_get_state(). Note this is
  53. different to what the driver has actually implemented if the request cannot be
  54. satisfied exactly with the hardware in use. There is currently no way for
  55. consumers to get the actually implemented settings.
  56. In addition to the PWM state, the PWM API also exposes PWM arguments, which
  57. are the reference PWM config one should use on this PWM.
  58. PWM arguments are usually platform-specific and allows the PWM user to only
  59. care about dutycycle relatively to the full period (like, duty = 50% of the
  60. period). struct pwm_args contains 2 fields (period and polarity) and should
  61. be used to set the initial PWM config (usually done in the probe function
  62. of the PWM user). PWM arguments are retrieved with pwm_get_args().
  63. All consumers should really be reconfiguring the PWM upon resume as
  64. appropriate. This is the only way to ensure that everything is resumed in
  65. the proper order.
  66. Using PWMs with the sysfs interface
  67. -----------------------------------
  68. If CONFIG_SYSFS is enabled in your kernel configuration a simple sysfs
  69. interface is provided to use the PWMs from userspace. It is exposed at
  70. /sys/class/pwm/. Each probed PWM controller/chip will be exported as
  71. pwmchipN, where N is the base of the PWM chip. Inside the directory you
  72. will find:
  73. npwm
  74. The number of PWM channels this chip supports (read-only).
  75. export
  76. Exports a PWM channel for use with sysfs (write-only).
  77. unexport
  78. Unexports a PWM channel from sysfs (write-only).
  79. The PWM channels are numbered using a per-chip index from 0 to npwm-1.
  80. When a PWM channel is exported a pwmX directory will be created in the
  81. pwmchipN directory it is associated with, where X is the number of the
  82. channel that was exported. The following properties will then be available:
  83. period
  84. The total period of the PWM signal (read/write).
  85. Value is in nanoseconds and is the sum of the active and inactive
  86. time of the PWM.
  87. duty_cycle
  88. The active time of the PWM signal (read/write).
  89. Value is in nanoseconds and must be less than the period.
  90. polarity
  91. Changes the polarity of the PWM signal (read/write).
  92. Writes to this property only work if the PWM chip supports changing
  93. the polarity. The polarity can only be changed if the PWM is not
  94. enabled. Value is the string "normal" or "inversed".
  95. enable
  96. Enable/disable the PWM signal (read/write).
  97. - 0 - disabled
  98. - 1 - enabled
  99. Implementing a PWM driver
  100. -------------------------
  101. Currently there are two ways to implement pwm drivers. Traditionally
  102. there only has been the barebone API meaning that each driver has
  103. to implement the pwm_*() functions itself. This means that it's impossible
  104. to have multiple PWM drivers in the system. For this reason it's mandatory
  105. for new drivers to use the generic PWM framework.
  106. A new PWM controller/chip can be added using pwmchip_add() and removed
  107. again with pwmchip_remove(). pwmchip_add() takes a filled in struct
  108. pwm_chip as argument which provides a description of the PWM chip, the
  109. number of PWM devices provided by the chip and the chip-specific
  110. implementation of the supported PWM operations to the framework.
  111. When implementing polarity support in a PWM driver, make sure to respect the
  112. signal conventions in the PWM framework. By definition, normal polarity
  113. characterizes a signal starts high for the duration of the duty cycle and
  114. goes low for the remainder of the period. Conversely, a signal with inversed
  115. polarity starts low for the duration of the duty cycle and goes high for the
  116. remainder of the period.
  117. Drivers are encouraged to implement ->apply() instead of the legacy
  118. ->enable(), ->disable() and ->config() methods. Doing that should provide
  119. atomicity in the PWM config workflow, which is required when the PWM controls
  120. a critical device (like a regulator).
  121. The implementation of ->get_state() (a method used to retrieve initial PWM
  122. state) is also encouraged for the same reason: letting the PWM user know
  123. about the current PWM state would allow him to avoid glitches.
  124. Drivers should not implement any power management. In other words,
  125. consumers should implement it as described in the "Using PWMs" section.
  126. Locking
  127. -------
  128. The PWM core list manipulations are protected by a mutex, so pwm_request()
  129. and pwm_free() may not be called from an atomic context. Currently the
  130. PWM core does not enforce any locking to pwm_enable(), pwm_disable() and
  131. pwm_config(), so the calling context is currently driver specific. This
  132. is an issue derived from the former barebone API and should be fixed soon.
  133. Helpers
  134. -------
  135. Currently a PWM can only be configured with period_ns and duty_ns. For several
  136. use cases freq_hz and duty_percent might be better. Instead of calculating
  137. this in your driver please consider adding appropriate helpers to the framework.