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diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/surface_aggregator/overview.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/surface_aggregator/overview.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..26415e1ab7da --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/driver-api/surface_aggregator/overview.rst @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+ + +======== +Overview +======== + +The Surface/System Aggregator Module (SAM, SSAM) is an (arguably *the*) +embedded controller (EC) on Microsoft Surface devices. It has been originally +introduced on 4th generation devices (Surface Pro 4, Surface Book 1), but +its responsibilities and feature-set have since been expanded significantly +with the following generations. + + +Features and Integration +======================== + +Not much is currently known about SAM on 4th generation devices (Surface Pro +4, Surface Book 1), due to the use of a different communication interface +between host and EC (as detailed below). On 5th (Surface Pro 2017, Surface +Book 2, Surface Laptop 1) and later generation devices, SAM is responsible +for providing battery information (both current status and static values, +such as maximum capacity etc.), as well as an assortment of temperature +sensors (e.g. skin temperature) and cooling/performance-mode setting to the +host. On the Surface Book 2, specifically, it additionally provides an +interface for properly handling clipboard detachment (i.e. separating the +display part from the keyboard part of the device), on the Surface Laptop 1 +and 2 it is required for keyboard HID input. This HID subsystem has been +restructured for 7th generation devices and on those, specifically Surface +Laptop 3 and Surface Book 3, is responsible for all major HID input (i.e. +keyboard and touchpad). + +While features have not changed much on a coarse level since the 5th +generation, internal interfaces have undergone some rather large changes. On +5th and 6th generation devices, both battery and temperature information is +exposed to ACPI via a shim driver (referred to as Surface ACPI Notify, or +SAN), translating ACPI generic serial bus write-/read-accesses to SAM +requests. On 7th generation devices, this additional layer is gone and these +devices require a driver hooking directly into the SAM interface. Equally, +on newer generations, less devices are declared in ACPI, making them a bit +harder to discover and requiring us to hard-code a sort of device registry. +Due to this, a SSAM bus and subsystem with client devices +(:c:type:`struct ssam_device <ssam_device>`) has been implemented. + + +Communication +============= + +The type of communication interface between host and EC depends on the +generation of the Surface device. On 4th generation devices, host and EC +communicate via HID, specifically using a HID-over-I2C device, whereas on +5th and later generations, communication takes place via a USART serial +device. In accordance to the drivers found on other operating systems, we +refer to the serial device and its driver as Surface Serial Hub (SSH). When +needed, we differentiate between both types of SAM by referring to them as +SAM-over-SSH and SAM-over-HID. + +Currently, this subsystem only supports SAM-over-SSH. The SSH communication +interface is described in more detail below. The HID interface has not been +reverse engineered yet and it is, at the moment, unclear how many (and +which) concepts of the SSH interface detailed below can be transferred to +it. + +Surface Serial Hub +------------------ + +As already elaborated above, the Surface Serial Hub (SSH) is the +communication interface for SAM on 5th- and all later-generation Surface +devices. On the highest level, communication can be separated into two main +types: Requests, messages sent from host to EC that may trigger a direct +response from the EC (explicitly associated with the request), and events +(sometimes also referred to as notifications), sent from EC to host without +being a direct response to a previous request. We may also refer to requests +without response as commands. In general, events need to be enabled via one +of multiple dedicated requests before they are sent by the EC. + +See Documentation/driver-api/surface_aggregator/ssh.rst for a +more technical protocol documentation and +Documentation/driver-api/surface_aggregator/internal.rst for an +overview of the internal driver architecture. |