RFC on writel and writel_relaxed

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 1:02 PM, Will Deacon <will.deacon at arm.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:53:49PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:09 PM, Will Deacon <will.deacon at arm.com> wrote:
>> > On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:05:06PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:

> diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> index a863009849a3..3247547d1c36 100644
> --- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> @@ -1909,9 +1909,6 @@ There are some more advanced barrier functions:
>                 /* assign ownership */
>                 desc->status = DEVICE_OWN;
>
> -               /* force memory to sync before notifying device via MMIO */
> -               wmb();
> -
>                 /* notify device of new descriptors */
>                 writel(DESC_NOTIFY, doorbell);
>         }
> @@ -1919,11 +1916,15 @@ There are some more advanced barrier functions:
>       The dma_rmb() allows us guarantee the device has released ownership
>       before we read the data from the descriptor, and the dma_wmb() allows
>       us to guarantee the data is written to the descriptor before the device
> -     can see it now has ownership.  The wmb() is needed to guarantee that the
> -     cache coherent memory writes have completed before attempting a write to
> -     the cache incoherent MMIO region.
> -
> -     See Documentation/DMA-API.txt for more information on consistent memory.
> +     can see it now has ownership.  Note that, when using writel(), a prior
> +     wmb() is not needed to guarantee that the cache coherent memory writes
> +     have completed before writing to the MMIO region.  The cheaper
> +     writel_relaxed() does not provide this guarantee and must not be used
> +     here.
> +
> +     See the subsection "Kernel I/O barrier effects" for more information on
> +     relaxed I/O accessors and the Documentation/DMA-API.txt file for more
> +     information on consistent memory.
>
>
>  MMIO WRITE BARRIER
>
>
> If you're happy with that, I'll send it as a proper patch.

Looks good to me, thanks!

       Arnd