1 PINCTRL (PIN CONTROL) subsystem
2 This document outlines the pin control subsystem in Linux
4 This subsystem deals with:
6 - Enumerating and naming controllable pins
8 - Multiplexing of pins, pads, fingers (etc) see below for details
10 - Configuration of pins, pads, fingers (etc), such as software-controlled
11 biasing and driving mode specific pins, such as pull-up/down, open drain,
17 Definition of PIN CONTROLLER:
19 - A pin controller is a piece of hardware, usually a set of registers, that
20 can control PINs. It may be able to multiplex, bias, set load capacitance,
21 set drive strength, etc. for individual pins or groups of pins.
25 - PINS are equal to pads, fingers, balls or whatever packaging input or
26 output line you want to control and these are denoted by unsigned integers
27 in the range 0..maxpin. This numberspace is local to each PIN CONTROLLER, so
28 there may be several such number spaces in a system. This pin space may
29 be sparse - i.e. there may be gaps in the space with numbers where no
32 When a PIN CONTROLLER is instantiated, it will register a descriptor to the
33 pin control framework, and this descriptor contains an array of pin descriptors
34 describing the pins handled by this specific pin controller.
36 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath:
56 To register a pin controller and name all the pins on this package we can do
59 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
61 const struct pinctrl_pin_desc foo_pins[] = {
66 PINCTRL_PIN(61, "F1"),
67 PINCTRL_PIN(62, "G1"),
68 PINCTRL_PIN(63, "H1"),
71 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
74 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(foo_pins),
78 int __init foo_probe(void)
80 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
82 return pinctrl_register_and_init(&foo_desc, <PARENT>, NULL, &pctl);
85 To enable the pinctrl subsystem and the subgroups for PINMUX and PINCONF and
86 selected drivers, you need to select them from your machine's Kconfig entry,
87 since these are so tightly integrated with the machines they are used on.
88 See for example arch/arm/mach-u300/Kconfig for an example.
90 Pins usually have fancier names than this. You can find these in the datasheet
91 for your chip. Notice that the core pinctrl.h file provides a fancy macro
92 called PINCTRL_PIN() to create the struct entries. As you can see I enumerated
93 the pins from 0 in the upper left corner to 63 in the lower right corner.
94 This enumeration was arbitrarily chosen, in practice you need to think
95 through your numbering system so that it matches the layout of registers
96 and such things in your driver, or the code may become complicated. You must
97 also consider matching of offsets to the GPIO ranges that may be handled by
100 For a padring with 467 pads, as opposed to actual pins, I used an enumeration
101 like this, walking around the edge of the chip, which seems to be industry
102 standard too (all these pads had names, too):
116 Many controllers need to deal with groups of pins, so the pin controller
117 subsystem has a mechanism for enumerating groups of pins and retrieving the
118 actual enumerated pins that are part of a certain group.
120 For example, say that we have a group of pins dealing with an SPI interface
121 on { 0, 8, 16, 24 }, and a group of pins dealing with an I2C interface on pins
124 These two groups are presented to the pin control subsystem by implementing
125 some generic pinctrl_ops like this:
127 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
131 const unsigned int *pins;
132 const unsigned num_pins;
135 static const unsigned int spi0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
136 static const unsigned int i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
138 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
142 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_pins),
147 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
152 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
154 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
157 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
160 return foo_groups[selector].name;
163 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
164 const unsigned **pins,
167 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
168 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
172 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
173 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
174 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
175 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
179 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
181 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
184 The pin control subsystem will call the .get_groups_count() function to
185 determine the total number of legal selectors, then it will call the other functions
186 to retrieve the name and pins of the group. Maintaining the data structure of
187 the groups is up to the driver, this is just a simple example - in practice you
188 may need more entries in your group structure, for example specific register
189 ranges associated with each group and so on.
195 Pins can sometimes be software-configured in various ways, mostly related
196 to their electronic properties when used as inputs or outputs. For example you
197 may be able to make an output pin high impedance, or "tristate" meaning it is
198 effectively disconnected. You may be able to connect an input pin to VDD or GND
199 using a certain resistor value - pull up and pull down - so that the pin has a
200 stable value when nothing is driving the rail it is connected to, or when it's
203 Pin configuration can be programmed by adding configuration entries into the
204 mapping table; see section "Board/machine configuration" below.
206 The format and meaning of the configuration parameter, PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP
207 above, is entirely defined by the pin controller driver.
209 The pin configuration driver implements callbacks for changing pin
210 configuration in the pin controller ops like this:
212 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
213 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinconf.h>
214 #include "platform_x_pindefs.h"
216 static int foo_pin_config_get(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
218 unsigned long *config)
220 struct my_conftype conf;
222 ... Find setting for pin @ offset ...
224 *config = (unsigned long) conf;
227 static int foo_pin_config_set(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
229 unsigned long config)
231 struct my_conftype *conf = (struct my_conftype *) config;
234 case PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP:
240 static int foo_pin_config_group_get (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
242 unsigned long *config)
247 static int foo_pin_config_group_set (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
249 unsigned long config)
254 static struct pinconf_ops foo_pconf_ops = {
255 .pin_config_get = foo_pin_config_get,
256 .pin_config_set = foo_pin_config_set,
257 .pin_config_group_get = foo_pin_config_group_get,
258 .pin_config_group_set = foo_pin_config_group_set,
261 /* Pin config operations are handled by some pin controller */
262 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
264 .confops = &foo_pconf_ops,
267 Since some controllers have special logic for handling entire groups of pins
268 they can exploit the special whole-group pin control function. The
269 pin_config_group_set() callback is allowed to return the error code -EAGAIN,
270 for groups it does not want to handle, or if it just wants to do some
271 group-level handling and then fall through to iterate over all pins, in which
272 case each individual pin will be treated by separate pin_config_set() calls as
276 Interaction with the GPIO subsystem
277 ===================================
279 The GPIO drivers may want to perform operations of various types on the same
280 physical pins that are also registered as pin controller pins.
282 First and foremost, the two subsystems can be used as completely orthogonal,
283 see the section named "pin control requests from drivers" and
284 "drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs" below for details. But in some
285 situations a cross-subsystem mapping between pins and GPIOs is needed.
287 Since the pin controller subsystem has its pinspace local to the pin controller
288 we need a mapping so that the pin control subsystem can figure out which pin
289 controller handles control of a certain GPIO pin. Since a single pin controller
290 may be muxing several GPIO ranges (typically SoCs that have one set of pins,
291 but internally several GPIO silicon blocks, each modelled as a struct
292 gpio_chip) any number of GPIO ranges can be added to a pin controller instance
295 struct gpio_chip chip_a;
296 struct gpio_chip chip_b;
298 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_a = {
307 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_b = {
317 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
319 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_a);
320 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_b);
323 So this complex system has one pin controller handling two different
324 GPIO chips. "chip a" has 16 pins and "chip b" has 8 pins. The "chip a" and
325 "chip b" have different .pin_base, which means a start pin number of the
328 The GPIO range of "chip a" starts from the GPIO base of 32 and actual
329 pin range also starts from 32. However "chip b" has different starting
330 offset for the GPIO range and pin range. The GPIO range of "chip b" starts
331 from GPIO number 48, while the pin range of "chip b" starts from 64.
333 We can convert a gpio number to actual pin number using this "pin_base".
334 They are mapped in the global GPIO pin space at:
337 - GPIO range : [32 .. 47]
338 - pin range : [32 .. 47]
340 - GPIO range : [48 .. 55]
341 - pin range : [64 .. 71]
343 The above examples assume the mapping between the GPIOs and pins is
344 linear. If the mapping is sparse or haphazard, an array of arbitrary pin
345 numbers can be encoded in the range like this:
347 static const unsigned range_pins[] = { 14, 1, 22, 17, 10, 8, 6, 2 };
349 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range = {
354 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(range_pins),
358 In this case the pin_base property will be ignored. If the name of a pin
359 group is known, the pins and npins elements of the above structure can be
360 initialised using the function pinctrl_get_group_pins(), e.g. for pin
363 pinctrl_get_group_pins(pctl, "foo", &gpio_range.pins, &gpio_range.npins);
365 When GPIO-specific functions in the pin control subsystem are called, these
366 ranges will be used to look up the appropriate pin controller by inspecting
367 and matching the pin to the pin ranges across all controllers. When a
368 pin controller handling the matching range is found, GPIO-specific functions
369 will be called on that specific pin controller.
371 For all functionalities dealing with pin biasing, pin muxing etc, the pin
372 controller subsystem will look up the corresponding pin number from the passed
373 in gpio number, and use the range's internals to retrieve a pin number. After
374 that, the subsystem passes it on to the pin control driver, so the driver
375 will get a pin number into its handled number range. Further it is also passed
376 the range ID value, so that the pin controller knows which range it should
379 Calling pinctrl_add_gpio_range from pinctrl driver is DEPRECATED. Please see
380 section 2.1 of Documentation/devicetree/bindings/gpio/gpio.txt on how to bind
381 pinctrl and gpio drivers.
387 These calls use the pinmux_* naming prefix. No other calls should use that
394 PINMUX, also known as padmux, ballmux, alternate functions or mission modes
395 is a way for chip vendors producing some kind of electrical packages to use
396 a certain physical pin (ball, pad, finger, etc) for multiple mutually exclusive
397 functions, depending on the application. By "application" in this context
398 we usually mean a way of soldering or wiring the package into an electronic
399 system, even though the framework makes it possible to also change the function
402 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath:
406 8 | o | o o o o o o o
408 7 | o | o o o o o o o
410 6 | o | o o o o o o o
412 5 | o | o | o o o o o o
414 4 o o o o o o | o | o
416 3 o o o o o o | o | o
418 2 o o o o o o | o | o
419 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
420 1 | o o | o o | o o | o | o |
421 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
423 This is not tetris. The game to think of is chess. Not all PGA/BGA packages
424 are chessboard-like, big ones have "holes" in some arrangement according to
425 different design patterns, but we're using this as a simple example. Of the
426 pins you see some will be taken by things like a few VCC and GND to feed power
427 to the chip, and quite a few will be taken by large ports like an external
428 memory interface. The remaining pins will often be subject to pin multiplexing.
430 The example 8x8 PGA package above will have pin numbers 0 through 63 assigned
431 to its physical pins. It will name the pins { A1, A2, A3 ... H6, H7, H8 } using
432 pinctrl_register_pins() and a suitable data set as shown earlier.
434 In this 8x8 BGA package the pins { A8, A7, A6, A5 } can be used as an SPI port
435 (these are four pins: CLK, RXD, TXD, FRM). In that case, pin B5 can be used as
436 some general-purpose GPIO pin. However, in another setting, pins { A5, B5 } can
437 be used as an I2C port (these are just two pins: SCL, SDA). Needless to say,
438 we cannot use the SPI port and I2C port at the same time. However in the inside
439 of the package the silicon performing the SPI logic can alternatively be routed
440 out on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 }.
442 On the bottom row at { A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, H1 } we have something
443 special - it's an external MMC bus that can be 2, 4 or 8 bits wide, and it will
444 consume 2, 4 or 8 pins respectively, so either { A1, B1 } are taken or
445 { A1, B1, C1, D1 } or all of them. If we use all 8 bits, we cannot use the SPI
446 port on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 } of course.
448 This way the silicon blocks present inside the chip can be multiplexed "muxed"
449 out on different pin ranges. Often contemporary SoC (systems on chip) will
450 contain several I2C, SPI, SDIO/MMC, etc silicon blocks that can be routed to
451 different pins by pinmux settings.
453 Since general-purpose I/O pins (GPIO) are typically always in shortage, it is
454 common to be able to use almost any pin as a GPIO pin if it is not currently
455 in use by some other I/O port.
461 The purpose of the pinmux functionality in the pin controller subsystem is to
462 abstract and provide pinmux settings to the devices you choose to instantiate
463 in your machine configuration. It is inspired by the clk, GPIO and regulator
464 subsystems, so devices will request their mux setting, but it's also possible
465 to request a single pin for e.g. GPIO.
469 - FUNCTIONS can be switched in and out by a driver residing with the pin
470 control subsystem in the drivers/pinctrl/* directory of the kernel. The
471 pin control driver knows the possible functions. In the example above you can
472 identify three pinmux functions, one for spi, one for i2c and one for mmc.
474 - FUNCTIONS are assumed to be enumerable from zero in a one-dimensional array.
475 In this case the array could be something like: { spi0, i2c0, mmc0 }
476 for the three available functions.
478 - FUNCTIONS have PIN GROUPS as defined on the generic level - so a certain
479 function is *always* associated with a certain set of pin groups, could
480 be just a single one, but could also be many. In the example above the
481 function i2c is associated with the pins { A5, B5 }, enumerated as
482 { 24, 25 } in the controller pin space.
484 The Function spi is associated with pin groups { A8, A7, A6, A5 }
485 and { G4, G3, G2, G1 }, which are enumerated as { 0, 8, 16, 24 } and
486 { 38, 46, 54, 62 } respectively.
488 Group names must be unique per pin controller, no two groups on the same
489 controller may have the same name.
491 - The combination of a FUNCTION and a PIN GROUP determine a certain function
492 for a certain set of pins. The knowledge of the functions and pin groups
493 and their machine-specific particulars are kept inside the pinmux driver,
494 from the outside only the enumerators are known, and the driver core can
497 - The name of a function with a certain selector (>= 0)
498 - A list of groups associated with a certain function
499 - That a certain group in that list to be activated for a certain function
501 As already described above, pin groups are in turn self-descriptive, so
502 the core will retrieve the actual pin range in a certain group from the
505 - FUNCTIONS and GROUPS on a certain PIN CONTROLLER are MAPPED to a certain
506 device by the board file, device tree or similar machine setup configuration
507 mechanism, similar to how regulators are connected to devices, usually by
508 name. Defining a pin controller, function and group thus uniquely identify
509 the set of pins to be used by a certain device. (If only one possible group
510 of pins is available for the function, no group name need to be supplied -
511 the core will simply select the first and only group available.)
513 In the example case we can define that this particular machine shall
514 use device spi0 with pinmux function fspi0 group gspi0 and i2c0 on function
515 fi2c0 group gi2c0, on the primary pin controller, we get mappings
519 {"map-spi0", spi0, pinctrl0, fspi0, gspi0},
520 {"map-i2c0", i2c0, pinctrl0, fi2c0, gi2c0}
523 Every map must be assigned a state name, pin controller, device and
524 function. The group is not compulsory - if it is omitted the first group
525 presented by the driver as applicable for the function will be selected,
526 which is useful for simple cases.
528 It is possible to map several groups to the same combination of device,
529 pin controller and function. This is for cases where a certain function on
530 a certain pin controller may use different sets of pins in different
533 - PINS for a certain FUNCTION using a certain PIN GROUP on a certain
534 PIN CONTROLLER are provided on a first-come first-serve basis, so if some
535 other device mux setting or GPIO pin request has already taken your physical
536 pin, you will be denied the use of it. To get (activate) a new setting, the
537 old one has to be put (deactivated) first.
539 Sometimes the documentation and hardware registers will be oriented around
540 pads (or "fingers") rather than pins - these are the soldering surfaces on the
541 silicon inside the package, and may or may not match the actual number of
542 pins/balls underneath the capsule. Pick some enumeration that makes sense to
543 you. Define enumerators only for the pins you can control if that makes sense.
547 We assume that the number of possible function maps to pin groups is limited by
548 the hardware. I.e. we assume that there is no system where any function can be
549 mapped to any pin, like in a phone exchange. So the available pin groups for
550 a certain function will be limited to a few choices (say up to eight or so),
551 not hundreds or any amount of choices. This is the characteristic we have found
552 by inspecting available pinmux hardware, and a necessary assumption since we
553 expect pinmux drivers to present *all* possible function vs pin group mappings
560 The pinmux core takes care of preventing conflicts on pins and calling
561 the pin controller driver to execute different settings.
563 It is the responsibility of the pinmux driver to impose further restrictions
564 (say for example infer electronic limitations due to load, etc.) to determine
565 whether or not the requested function can actually be allowed, and in case it
566 is possible to perform the requested mux setting, poke the hardware so that
569 Pinmux drivers are required to supply a few callback functions, some are
570 optional. Usually the set_mux() function is implemented, writing values into
571 some certain registers to activate a certain mux setting for a certain pin.
573 A simple driver for the above example will work by setting bits 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4
574 into some register named MUX to select a certain function with a certain
575 group of pins would work something like this:
577 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
578 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinmux.h>
582 const unsigned int *pins;
583 const unsigned num_pins;
586 static const unsigned spi0_0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
587 static const unsigned spi0_1_pins[] = { 38, 46, 54, 62 };
588 static const unsigned i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
589 static const unsigned mmc0_1_pins[] = { 56, 57 };
590 static const unsigned mmc0_2_pins[] = { 58, 59 };
591 static const unsigned mmc0_3_pins[] = { 60, 61, 62, 63 };
593 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
595 .name = "spi0_0_grp",
597 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_0_pins),
600 .name = "spi0_1_grp",
602 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_1_pins),
607 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
610 .name = "mmc0_1_grp",
612 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_1_pins),
615 .name = "mmc0_2_grp",
617 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_2_pins),
620 .name = "mmc0_3_grp",
622 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_3_pins),
627 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
629 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
632 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
635 return foo_groups[selector].name;
638 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
639 unsigned ** const pins,
640 unsigned * const num_pins)
642 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
643 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
647 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
648 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
649 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
650 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
653 struct foo_pmx_func {
655 const char * const *groups;
656 const unsigned num_groups;
659 static const char * const spi0_groups[] = { "spi0_0_grp", "spi0_1_grp" };
660 static const char * const i2c0_groups[] = { "i2c0_grp" };
661 static const char * const mmc0_groups[] = { "mmc0_1_grp", "mmc0_2_grp",
664 static const struct foo_pmx_func foo_functions[] = {
667 .groups = spi0_groups,
668 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_groups),
672 .groups = i2c0_groups,
673 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_groups),
677 .groups = mmc0_groups,
678 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_groups),
682 static int foo_get_functions_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
684 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_functions);
687 static const char *foo_get_fname(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector)
689 return foo_functions[selector].name;
692 static int foo_get_groups(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
693 const char * const **groups,
694 unsigned * const num_groups)
696 *groups = foo_functions[selector].groups;
697 *num_groups = foo_functions[selector].num_groups;
701 static int foo_set_mux(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
704 u8 regbit = (1 << selector + group);
706 writeb((readb(MUX)|regbit), MUX)
710 static struct pinmux_ops foo_pmxops = {
711 .get_functions_count = foo_get_functions_count,
712 .get_function_name = foo_get_fname,
713 .get_function_groups = foo_get_groups,
714 .set_mux = foo_set_mux,
718 /* Pinmux operations are handled by some pin controller */
719 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
721 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
722 .pmxops = &foo_pmxops,
725 In the example activating muxing 0 and 1 at the same time setting bits
726 0 and 1, uses one pin in common so they would collide.
728 The beauty of the pinmux subsystem is that since it keeps track of all
729 pins and who is using them, it will already have denied an impossible
730 request like that, so the driver does not need to worry about such
731 things - when it gets a selector passed in, the pinmux subsystem makes
732 sure no other device or GPIO assignment is already using the selected
733 pins. Thus bits 0 and 1 in the control register will never be set at the
736 All the above functions are mandatory to implement for a pinmux driver.
739 Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem
740 ===============================================
742 Note that the following implies that the use case is to use a certain pin
743 from the Linux kernel using the API in <linux/gpio.h> with gpio_request()
744 and similar functions. There are cases where you may be using something
745 that your datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but actually is just an electrical
746 configuration for a certain device. See the section below named
747 "GPIO mode pitfalls" for more details on this scenario.
749 The public pinmux API contains two functions named pinctrl_request_gpio()
750 and pinctrl_free_gpio(). These two functions shall *ONLY* be called from
751 gpiolib-based drivers as part of their gpio_request() and
752 gpio_free() semantics. Likewise the pinctrl_gpio_direction_[input|output]
753 shall only be called from within respective gpio_direction_[input|output]
754 gpiolib implementation.
756 NOTE that platforms and individual drivers shall *NOT* request GPIO pins to be
757 controlled e.g. muxed in. Instead, implement a proper gpiolib driver and have
758 that driver request proper muxing and other control for its pins.
760 The function list could become long, especially if you can convert every
761 individual pin into a GPIO pin independent of any other pins, and then try
762 the approach to define every pin as a function.
764 In this case, the function array would become 64 entries for each GPIO
765 setting and then the device functions.
767 For this reason there are two functions a pin control driver can implement
768 to enable only GPIO on an individual pin: .gpio_request_enable() and
769 .gpio_disable_free().
771 This function will pass in the affected GPIO range identified by the pin
772 controller core, so you know which GPIO pins are being affected by the request
775 If your driver needs to have an indication from the framework of whether the
776 GPIO pin shall be used for input or output you can implement the
777 .gpio_set_direction() function. As described this shall be called from the
778 gpiolib driver and the affected GPIO range, pin offset and desired direction
779 will be passed along to this function.
781 Alternatively to using these special functions, it is fully allowed to use
782 named functions for each GPIO pin, the pinctrl_request_gpio() will attempt to
783 obtain the function "gpioN" where "N" is the global GPIO pin number if no
784 special GPIO-handler is registered.
790 Due to the naming conventions used by hardware engineers, where "GPIO"
791 is taken to mean different things than what the kernel does, the developer
792 may be confused by a datasheet talking about a pin being possible to set
793 into "GPIO mode". It appears that what hardware engineers mean with
794 "GPIO mode" is not necessarily the use case that is implied in the kernel
795 interface <linux/gpio.h>: a pin that you grab from kernel code and then
796 either listen for input or drive high/low to assert/deassert some
799 Rather hardware engineers think that "GPIO mode" means that you can
800 software-control a few electrical properties of the pin that you would
801 not be able to control if the pin was in some other mode, such as muxed in
804 The GPIO portions of a pin and its relation to a certain pin controller
805 configuration and muxing logic can be constructed in several ways. Here
812 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
819 Here some electrical properties of the pin can be configured no matter
820 whether the pin is used for GPIO or not. If you multiplex a GPIO onto a
821 pin, you can also drive it high/low from "GPIO" registers.
822 Alternatively, the pin can be controlled by a certain peripheral, while
823 still applying desired pin config properties. GPIO functionality is thus
824 orthogonal to any other device using the pin.
826 In this arrangement the registers for the GPIO portions of the pin controller,
827 or the registers for the GPIO hardware module are likely to reside in a
828 separate memory range only intended for GPIO driving, and the register
829 range dealing with pin config and pin multiplexing get placed into a
830 different memory range and a separate section of the data sheet.
832 A flag "strict" in struct pinmux_ops is available to check and deny
833 simultaneous access to the same pin from GPIO and pin multiplexing
834 consumers on hardware of this type. The pinctrl driver should set this flag
842 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
849 In this arrangement, the GPIO functionality can always be enabled, such that
850 e.g. a GPIO input can be used to "spy" on the SPI/I2C/MMC signal while it is
851 pulsed out. It is likely possible to disrupt the traffic on the pin by doing
852 wrong things on the GPIO block, as it is never really disconnected. It is
853 possible that the GPIO, pin config and pin multiplex registers are placed into
854 the same memory range and the same section of the data sheet, although that
855 need not be the case.
857 In some pin controllers, although the physical pins are designed in the same
858 way as (B), the GPIO function still can't be enabled at the same time as the
859 peripheral functions. So again the "strict" flag should be set, denying
860 simultaneous activation by GPIO and other muxed in devices.
862 From a kernel point of view, however, these are different aspects of the
863 hardware and shall be put into different subsystems:
865 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control electrical
866 properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength should be
867 exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as "pin configuration" settings.
869 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control muxing of signals
870 from various other HW blocks (e.g. I2C, MMC, or GPIO) onto pins should
871 be exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as mux functions.
873 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control GPIO functionality
874 such as setting a GPIO's output value, reading a GPIO's input value, or
875 setting GPIO pin direction should be exposed through the GPIO subsystem,
876 and if they also support interrupt capabilities, through the irqchip
879 Depending on the exact HW register design, some functions exposed by the
880 GPIO subsystem may call into the pinctrl subsystem in order to
881 co-ordinate register settings across HW modules. In particular, this may
882 be needed for HW with separate GPIO and pin controller HW modules, where
883 e.g. GPIO direction is determined by a register in the pin controller HW
884 module rather than the GPIO HW module.
886 Electrical properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength
887 may be placed at some pin-specific register in all cases or as part
888 of the GPIO register in case (B) especially. This doesn't mean that such
889 properties necessarily pertain to what the Linux kernel calls "GPIO".
891 Example: a pin is usually muxed in to be used as a UART TX line. But during
892 system sleep, we need to put this pin into "GPIO mode" and ground it.
894 If you make a 1-to-1 map to the GPIO subsystem for this pin, you may start
895 to think that you need to come up with something really complex, that the
896 pin shall be used for UART TX and GPIO at the same time, that you will grab
897 a pin control handle and set it to a certain state to enable UART TX to be
898 muxed in, then twist it over to GPIO mode and use gpio_direction_output()
899 to drive it low during sleep, then mux it over to UART TX again when you
900 wake up and maybe even gpio_request/gpio_free as part of this cycle. This
901 all gets very complicated.
903 The solution is to not think that what the datasheet calls "GPIO mode"
904 has to be handled by the <linux/gpio.h> interface. Instead view this as
905 a certain pin config setting. Look in e.g. <linux/pinctrl/pinconf-generic.h>
906 and you find this in the documentation:
908 PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT: this will configure the pin in output, use argument
909 1 to indicate high level, argument 0 to indicate low level.
911 So it is perfectly possible to push a pin into "GPIO mode" and drive the
912 line low as part of the usual pin control map. So for example your UART
913 driver may look like this:
915 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
917 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
918 struct pinctrl_state *pins_default;
919 struct pinctrl_state *pins_sleep;
921 pins_default = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
922 pins_sleep = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP);
925 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_default);
927 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_sleep);
929 And your machine configuration may look like this:
930 --------------------------------------------------
932 static unsigned long uart_default_mode[] = {
933 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_DRIVE_PUSH_PULL, 0),
936 static unsigned long uart_sleep_mode[] = {
937 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT, 0),
940 static struct pinctrl_map pinmap[] __initdata = {
941 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
943 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
944 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_default_mode),
945 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
946 "u0_group", "gpio-mode"),
947 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
948 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_sleep_mode),
952 pinctrl_register_mappings(pinmap, ARRAY_SIZE(pinmap));
955 Here the pins we want to control are in the "u0_group" and there is some
956 function called "u0" that can be enabled on this group of pins, and then
957 everything is UART business as usual. But there is also some function
958 named "gpio-mode" that can be mapped onto the same pins to move them into
961 This will give the desired effect without any bogus interaction with the
962 GPIO subsystem. It is just an electrical configuration used by that device
963 when going to sleep, it might imply that the pin is set into something the
964 datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but that is not the point: it is still used
965 by that UART device to control the pins that pertain to that very UART
966 driver, putting them into modes needed by the UART. GPIO in the Linux
967 kernel sense are just some 1-bit line, and is a different use case.
969 How the registers are poked to attain the push or pull, and output low
970 configuration and the muxing of the "u0" or "gpio-mode" group onto these
971 pins is a question for the driver.
973 Some datasheets will be more helpful and refer to the "GPIO mode" as
974 "low power mode" rather than anything to do with GPIO. This often means
975 the same thing electrically speaking, but in this latter case the
976 software engineers will usually quickly identify that this is some
977 specific muxing or configuration rather than anything related to the GPIO
981 Board/machine configuration
982 ==================================
984 Boards and machines define how a certain complete running system is put
985 together, including how GPIOs and devices are muxed, how regulators are
986 constrained and how the clock tree looks. Of course pinmux settings are also
989 A pin controller configuration for a machine looks pretty much like a simple
990 regulator configuration, so for the example array above we want to enable i2c
991 and spi on the second function mapping:
993 #include <linux/pinctrl/machine.h>
995 static const struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initconst = {
997 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
998 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
999 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1000 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1001 .data.mux.function = "spi0",
1004 .dev_name = "foo-i2c.0",
1005 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1006 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1007 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1008 .data.mux.function = "i2c0",
1011 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1012 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1013 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1014 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1015 .data.mux.function = "mmc0",
1019 The dev_name here matches to the unique device name that can be used to look
1020 up the device struct (just like with clockdev or regulators). The function name
1021 must match a function provided by the pinmux driver handling this pin range.
1023 As you can see we may have several pin controllers on the system and thus
1024 we need to specify which one of them contains the functions we wish to map.
1026 You register this pinmux mapping to the pinmux subsystem by simply:
1028 ret = pinctrl_register_mappings(mapping, ARRAY_SIZE(mapping));
1030 Since the above construct is pretty common there is a helper macro to make
1031 it even more compact which assumes you want to use pinctrl-foo and position
1032 0 for mapping, for example:
1034 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1035 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.o", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", NULL, "i2c0"),
1038 The mapping table may also contain pin configuration entries. It's common for
1039 each pin/group to have a number of configuration entries that affect it, so
1040 the table entries for configuration reference an array of config parameters
1041 and values. An example using the convenience macros is shown below:
1043 static unsigned long i2c_grp_configs[] = {
1048 static unsigned long i2c_pin_configs[] = {
1053 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1054 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", "i2c0"),
1055 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", i2c_grp_configs),
1056 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0scl", i2c_pin_configs),
1057 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0sda", i2c_pin_configs),
1060 Finally, some devices expect the mapping table to contain certain specific
1061 named states. When running on hardware that doesn't need any pin controller
1062 configuration, the mapping table must still contain those named states, in
1063 order to explicitly indicate that the states were provided and intended to
1064 be empty. Table entry macro PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE serves the purpose of defining
1065 a named state without causing any pin controller to be programmed:
1067 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1068 PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT),
1075 As it is possible to map a function to different groups of pins an optional
1076 .group can be specified like this:
1080 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1081 .name = "spi0-pos-A",
1082 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1083 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1085 .group = "spi0_0_grp",
1088 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1089 .name = "spi0-pos-B",
1090 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1091 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1093 .group = "spi0_1_grp",
1097 This example mapping is used to switch between two positions for spi0 at
1098 runtime, as described further below under the heading "Runtime pinmuxing".
1100 Further it is possible for one named state to affect the muxing of several
1101 groups of pins, say for example in the mmc0 example above, where you can
1102 additively expand the mmc0 bus from 2 to 4 to 8 pins. If we want to use all
1103 three groups for a total of 2+2+4 = 8 pins (for an 8-bit MMC bus as is the
1104 case), we define a mapping like this:
1108 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1110 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1111 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1113 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1116 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1118 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1119 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1121 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1124 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1126 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1127 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1129 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1132 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1134 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1135 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1137 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1140 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1142 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1143 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1145 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1148 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1150 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1151 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1153 .group = "mmc0_3_grp",
1157 The result of grabbing this mapping from the device with something like
1158 this (see next paragraph):
1160 p = devm_pinctrl_get(dev);
1161 s = pinctrl_lookup_state(p, "8bit");
1162 ret = pinctrl_select_state(p, s);
1166 p = devm_pinctrl_get_select(dev, "8bit");
1168 Will be that you activate all the three bottom records in the mapping at
1169 once. Since they share the same name, pin controller device, function and
1170 device, and since we allow multiple groups to match to a single device, they
1171 all get selected, and they all get enabled and disable simultaneously by the
1175 Pin control requests from drivers
1176 =================================
1178 When a device driver is about to probe the device core will automatically
1179 attempt to issue pinctrl_get_select_default() on these devices.
1180 This way driver writers do not need to add any of the boilerplate code
1181 of the type found below. However when doing fine-grained state selection
1182 and not using the "default" state, you may have to do some device driver
1183 handling of the pinctrl handles and states.
1185 So if you just want to put the pins for a certain device into the default
1186 state and be done with it, there is nothing you need to do besides
1187 providing the proper mapping table. The device core will take care of
1190 Generally it is discouraged to let individual drivers get and enable pin
1191 control. So if possible, handle the pin control in platform code or some other
1192 place where you have access to all the affected struct device * pointers. In
1193 some cases where a driver needs to e.g. switch between different mux mappings
1194 at runtime this is not possible.
1196 A typical case is if a driver needs to switch bias of pins from normal
1197 operation and going to sleep, moving from the PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT to
1198 PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP at runtime, re-biasing or even re-muxing pins to save
1199 current in sleep mode.
1201 A driver may request a certain control state to be activated, usually just the
1202 default state like this:
1204 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1208 struct pinctrl_state *s;
1214 /* Allocate a state holder named "foo" etc */
1215 struct foo_state *foo = ...;
1217 foo->p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1218 if (IS_ERR(foo->p)) {
1219 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1220 return PTR_ERR(foo->p);
1223 foo->s = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
1224 if (IS_ERR(foo->s)) {
1225 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1229 ret = pinctrl_select_state(foo->s);
1231 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1236 This get/lookup/select/put sequence can just as well be handled by bus drivers
1237 if you don't want each and every driver to handle it and you know the
1238 arrangement on your bus.
1240 The semantics of the pinctrl APIs are:
1242 - pinctrl_get() is called in process context to obtain a handle to all pinctrl
1243 information for a given client device. It will allocate a struct from the
1244 kernel memory to hold the pinmux state. All mapping table parsing or similar
1245 slow operations take place within this API.
1247 - devm_pinctrl_get() is a variant of pinctrl_get() that causes pinctrl_put()
1248 to be called automatically on the retrieved pointer when the associated
1249 device is removed. It is recommended to use this function over plain
1252 - pinctrl_lookup_state() is called in process context to obtain a handle to a
1253 specific state for a client device. This operation may be slow, too.
1255 - pinctrl_select_state() programs pin controller hardware according to the
1256 definition of the state as given by the mapping table. In theory, this is a
1257 fast-path operation, since it only involved blasting some register settings
1258 into hardware. However, note that some pin controllers may have their
1259 registers on a slow/IRQ-based bus, so client devices should not assume they
1260 can call pinctrl_select_state() from non-blocking contexts.
1262 - pinctrl_put() frees all information associated with a pinctrl handle.
1264 - devm_pinctrl_put() is a variant of pinctrl_put() that may be used to
1265 explicitly destroy a pinctrl object returned by devm_pinctrl_get().
1266 However, use of this function will be rare, due to the automatic cleanup
1267 that will occur even without calling it.
1269 pinctrl_get() must be paired with a plain pinctrl_put().
1270 pinctrl_get() may not be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1271 devm_pinctrl_get() can optionally be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1272 devm_pinctrl_get() may not be paired with plain pinctrl_put().
1274 Usually the pin control core handled the get/put pair and call out to the
1275 device drivers bookkeeping operations, like checking available functions and
1276 the associated pins, whereas select_state pass on to the pin controller
1277 driver which takes care of activating and/or deactivating the mux setting by
1278 quickly poking some registers.
1280 The pins are allocated for your device when you issue the devm_pinctrl_get()
1281 call, after this you should be able to see this in the debugfs listing of all
1284 NOTE: the pinctrl system will return -EPROBE_DEFER if it cannot find the
1285 requested pinctrl handles, for example if the pinctrl driver has not yet
1286 registered. Thus make sure that the error path in your driver gracefully
1287 cleans up and is ready to retry the probing later in the startup process.
1290 Drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs
1291 ==========================================
1293 Again, it is discouraged to let drivers lookup and select pin control states
1294 themselves, but again sometimes this is unavoidable.
1296 So say that your driver is fetching its resources like this:
1298 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1299 #include <linux/gpio.h>
1301 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
1304 pinctrl = devm_pinctrl_get_select_default(&dev);
1305 gpio = devm_gpio_request(&dev, 14, "foo");
1307 Here we first request a certain pin state and then request GPIO 14 to be
1308 used. If you're using the subsystems orthogonally like this, you should
1309 nominally always get your pinctrl handle and select the desired pinctrl
1310 state BEFORE requesting the GPIO. This is a semantic convention to avoid
1311 situations that can be electrically unpleasant, you will certainly want to
1312 mux in and bias pins in a certain way before the GPIO subsystems starts to
1315 The above can be hidden: using the device core, the pinctrl core may be
1316 setting up the config and muxing for the pins right before the device is
1317 probing, nevertheless orthogonal to the GPIO subsystem.
1319 But there are also situations where it makes sense for the GPIO subsystem
1320 to communicate directly with the pinctrl subsystem, using the latter as a
1321 back-end. This is when the GPIO driver may call out to the functions
1322 described in the section "Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem"
1323 above. This only involves per-pin multiplexing, and will be completely
1324 hidden behind the gpio_*() function namespace. In this case, the driver
1325 need not interact with the pin control subsystem at all.
1327 If a pin control driver and a GPIO driver is dealing with the same pins
1328 and the use cases involve multiplexing, you MUST implement the pin controller
1329 as a back-end for the GPIO driver like this, unless your hardware design
1330 is such that the GPIO controller can override the pin controller's
1331 multiplexing state through hardware without the need to interact with the
1335 System pin control hogging
1336 ==========================
1338 Pin control map entries can be hogged by the core when the pin controller
1339 is registered. This means that the core will attempt to call pinctrl_get(),
1340 lookup_state() and select_state() on it immediately after the pin control
1341 device has been registered.
1343 This occurs for mapping table entries where the client device name is equal
1344 to the pin controller device name, and the state name is PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT.
1347 .dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1348 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1349 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1350 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1351 .function = "power_func",
1354 Since it may be common to request the core to hog a few always-applicable
1355 mux settings on the primary pin controller, there is a convenience macro for
1358 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP_HOG_DEFAULT("pinctrl-foo", NULL /* group */, "power_func")
1360 This gives the exact same result as the above construction.
1366 It is possible to mux a certain function in and out at runtime, say to move
1367 an SPI port from one set of pins to another set of pins. Say for example for
1368 spi0 in the example above, we expose two different groups of pins for the same
1369 function, but with different named in the mapping as described under
1370 "Advanced mapping" above. So that for an SPI device, we have two states named
1371 "pos-A" and "pos-B".
1373 This snippet first initializes a state object for both groups (in foo_probe()),
1374 then muxes the function in the pins defined by group A, and finally muxes it in
1375 on the pins defined by group B:
1377 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1380 struct pinctrl_state *s1, *s2;
1385 p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1389 s1 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-A");
1393 s2 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-B");
1400 /* Enable on position A */
1401 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s1);
1407 /* Enable on position B */
1408 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s2);
1415 The above has to be done from process context. The reservation of the pins
1416 will be done when the state is activated, so in effect one specific pin
1417 can be used by different functions at different times on a running system.