aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/mtd/spi-nor.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/mtd/spi-nor.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/mtd/spi-nor.txt62
1 files changed, 62 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/mtd/spi-nor.txt b/Documentation/mtd/spi-nor.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..548d6306ebca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/mtd/spi-nor.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+ SPI NOR framework
+ ============================================
+
+Part I - Why do we need this framework?
+---------------------------------------
+
+SPI bus controllers (drivers/spi/) only deal with streams of bytes; the bus
+controller operates agnostic of the specific device attached. However, some
+controllers (such as Freescale's QuadSPI controller) cannot easily handle
+arbitrary streams of bytes, but rather are designed specifically for SPI NOR.
+
+In particular, Freescale's QuadSPI controller must know the NOR commands to
+find the right LUT sequence. Unfortunately, the SPI subsystem has no notion of
+opcodes, addresses, or data payloads; a SPI controller simply knows to send or
+receive bytes (Tx and Rx). Therefore, we must define a new layering scheme under
+which the controller driver is aware of the opcodes, addressing, and other
+details of the SPI NOR protocol.
+
+Part II - How does the framework work?
+--------------------------------------
+
+This framework just adds a new layer between the MTD and the SPI bus driver.
+With this new layer, the SPI NOR controller driver does not depend on the
+m25p80 code anymore.
+
+ Before this framework, the layer is like:
+
+ MTD
+ ------------------------
+ m25p80
+ ------------------------
+ SPI bus driver
+ ------------------------
+ SPI NOR chip
+
+ After this framework, the layer is like:
+ MTD
+ ------------------------
+ SPI NOR framework
+ ------------------------
+ m25p80
+ ------------------------
+ SPI bus driver
+ ------------------------
+ SPI NOR chip
+
+ With the SPI NOR controller driver (Freescale QuadSPI), it looks like:
+ MTD
+ ------------------------
+ SPI NOR framework
+ ------------------------
+ fsl-quadSPI
+ ------------------------
+ SPI NOR chip
+
+Part III - How can drivers use the framework?
+---------------------------------------------
+
+The main API is spi_nor_scan(). Before you call the hook, a driver should
+initialize the necessary fields for spi_nor{}. Please see
+drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c for detail. Please also refer to fsl-quadspi.c
+when you want to write a new driver for a SPI NOR controller.