1 ===============================
2 PINCTRL (PIN CONTROL) subsystem
3 ===============================
5 This document outlines the pin control subsystem in Linux
7 This subsystem deals with:
9 - Enumerating and naming controllable pins
11 - Multiplexing of pins, pads, fingers (etc) see below for details
13 - Configuration of pins, pads, fingers (etc), such as software-controlled
14 biasing and driving mode specific pins, such as pull-up/down, open drain,
20 Definition of PIN CONTROLLER:
22 - A pin controller is a piece of hardware, usually a set of registers, that
23 can control PINs. It may be able to multiplex, bias, set load capacitance,
24 set drive strength, etc. for individual pins or groups of pins.
28 - PINS are equal to pads, fingers, balls or whatever packaging input or
29 output line you want to control and these are denoted by unsigned integers
30 in the range 0..maxpin. This numberspace is local to each PIN CONTROLLER, so
31 there may be several such number spaces in a system. This pin space may
32 be sparse - i.e. there may be gaps in the space with numbers where no
35 When a PIN CONTROLLER is instantiated, it will register a descriptor to the
36 pin control framework, and this descriptor contains an array of pin descriptors
37 describing the pins handled by this specific pin controller.
39 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath::
59 To register a pin controller and name all the pins on this package we can do
62 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
64 const struct pinctrl_pin_desc foo_pins[] = {
69 PINCTRL_PIN(61, "F1"),
70 PINCTRL_PIN(62, "G1"),
71 PINCTRL_PIN(63, "H1"),
74 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
77 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(foo_pins),
81 int __init foo_probe(void)
85 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
87 error = pinctrl_register_and_init(&foo_desc, <PARENT>,
92 return pinctrl_enable(pctl);
95 To enable the pinctrl subsystem and the subgroups for PINMUX and PINCONF and
96 selected drivers, you need to select them from your machine's Kconfig entry,
97 since these are so tightly integrated with the machines they are used on.
98 See for example arch/arm/mach-u300/Kconfig for an example.
100 Pins usually have fancier names than this. You can find these in the datasheet
101 for your chip. Notice that the core pinctrl.h file provides a fancy macro
102 called PINCTRL_PIN() to create the struct entries. As you can see I enumerated
103 the pins from 0 in the upper left corner to 63 in the lower right corner.
104 This enumeration was arbitrarily chosen, in practice you need to think
105 through your numbering system so that it matches the layout of registers
106 and such things in your driver, or the code may become complicated. You must
107 also consider matching of offsets to the GPIO ranges that may be handled by
110 For a padring with 467 pads, as opposed to actual pins, I used an enumeration
111 like this, walking around the edge of the chip, which seems to be industry
112 standard too (all these pads had names, too)::
126 Many controllers need to deal with groups of pins, so the pin controller
127 subsystem has a mechanism for enumerating groups of pins and retrieving the
128 actual enumerated pins that are part of a certain group.
130 For example, say that we have a group of pins dealing with an SPI interface
131 on { 0, 8, 16, 24 }, and a group of pins dealing with an I2C interface on pins
134 These two groups are presented to the pin control subsystem by implementing
135 some generic pinctrl_ops like this::
137 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
141 const unsigned int *pins;
142 const unsigned num_pins;
145 static const unsigned int spi0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
146 static const unsigned int i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
148 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
152 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_pins),
157 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
162 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
164 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
167 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
170 return foo_groups[selector].name;
173 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
174 const unsigned **pins,
177 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
178 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
182 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
183 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
184 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
185 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
189 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
191 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
194 The pin control subsystem will call the .get_groups_count() function to
195 determine the total number of legal selectors, then it will call the other functions
196 to retrieve the name and pins of the group. Maintaining the data structure of
197 the groups is up to the driver, this is just a simple example - in practice you
198 may need more entries in your group structure, for example specific register
199 ranges associated with each group and so on.
205 Pins can sometimes be software-configured in various ways, mostly related
206 to their electronic properties when used as inputs or outputs. For example you
207 may be able to make an output pin high impedance, or "tristate" meaning it is
208 effectively disconnected. You may be able to connect an input pin to VDD or GND
209 using a certain resistor value - pull up and pull down - so that the pin has a
210 stable value when nothing is driving the rail it is connected to, or when it's
213 Pin configuration can be programmed by adding configuration entries into the
214 mapping table; see section "Board/machine configuration" below.
216 The format and meaning of the configuration parameter, PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP
217 above, is entirely defined by the pin controller driver.
219 The pin configuration driver implements callbacks for changing pin
220 configuration in the pin controller ops like this::
222 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
223 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinconf.h>
224 #include "platform_x_pindefs.h"
226 static int foo_pin_config_get(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
228 unsigned long *config)
230 struct my_conftype conf;
232 ... Find setting for pin @ offset ...
234 *config = (unsigned long) conf;
237 static int foo_pin_config_set(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
239 unsigned long config)
241 struct my_conftype *conf = (struct my_conftype *) config;
244 case PLATFORM_X_PULL_UP:
250 static int foo_pin_config_group_get (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
252 unsigned long *config)
257 static int foo_pin_config_group_set (struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
259 unsigned long config)
264 static struct pinconf_ops foo_pconf_ops = {
265 .pin_config_get = foo_pin_config_get,
266 .pin_config_set = foo_pin_config_set,
267 .pin_config_group_get = foo_pin_config_group_get,
268 .pin_config_group_set = foo_pin_config_group_set,
271 /* Pin config operations are handled by some pin controller */
272 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
274 .confops = &foo_pconf_ops,
277 Since some controllers have special logic for handling entire groups of pins
278 they can exploit the special whole-group pin control function. The
279 pin_config_group_set() callback is allowed to return the error code -EAGAIN,
280 for groups it does not want to handle, or if it just wants to do some
281 group-level handling and then fall through to iterate over all pins, in which
282 case each individual pin will be treated by separate pin_config_set() calls as
286 Interaction with the GPIO subsystem
287 ===================================
289 The GPIO drivers may want to perform operations of various types on the same
290 physical pins that are also registered as pin controller pins.
292 First and foremost, the two subsystems can be used as completely orthogonal,
293 see the section named "pin control requests from drivers" and
294 "drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs" below for details. But in some
295 situations a cross-subsystem mapping between pins and GPIOs is needed.
297 Since the pin controller subsystem has its pinspace local to the pin controller
298 we need a mapping so that the pin control subsystem can figure out which pin
299 controller handles control of a certain GPIO pin. Since a single pin controller
300 may be muxing several GPIO ranges (typically SoCs that have one set of pins,
301 but internally several GPIO silicon blocks, each modelled as a struct
302 gpio_chip) any number of GPIO ranges can be added to a pin controller instance
305 struct gpio_chip chip_a;
306 struct gpio_chip chip_b;
308 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_a = {
317 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_b = {
327 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
329 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_a);
330 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_b);
333 So this complex system has one pin controller handling two different
334 GPIO chips. "chip a" has 16 pins and "chip b" has 8 pins. The "chip a" and
335 "chip b" have different .pin_base, which means a start pin number of the
338 The GPIO range of "chip a" starts from the GPIO base of 32 and actual
339 pin range also starts from 32. However "chip b" has different starting
340 offset for the GPIO range and pin range. The GPIO range of "chip b" starts
341 from GPIO number 48, while the pin range of "chip b" starts from 64.
343 We can convert a gpio number to actual pin number using this "pin_base".
344 They are mapped in the global GPIO pin space at:
347 - GPIO range : [32 .. 47]
348 - pin range : [32 .. 47]
350 - GPIO range : [48 .. 55]
351 - pin range : [64 .. 71]
353 The above examples assume the mapping between the GPIOs and pins is
354 linear. If the mapping is sparse or haphazard, an array of arbitrary pin
355 numbers can be encoded in the range like this::
357 static const unsigned range_pins[] = { 14, 1, 22, 17, 10, 8, 6, 2 };
359 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range = {
364 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(range_pins),
368 In this case the pin_base property will be ignored. If the name of a pin
369 group is known, the pins and npins elements of the above structure can be
370 initialised using the function pinctrl_get_group_pins(), e.g. for pin
373 pinctrl_get_group_pins(pctl, "foo", &gpio_range.pins,
376 When GPIO-specific functions in the pin control subsystem are called, these
377 ranges will be used to look up the appropriate pin controller by inspecting
378 and matching the pin to the pin ranges across all controllers. When a
379 pin controller handling the matching range is found, GPIO-specific functions
380 will be called on that specific pin controller.
382 For all functionalities dealing with pin biasing, pin muxing etc, the pin
383 controller subsystem will look up the corresponding pin number from the passed
384 in gpio number, and use the range's internals to retrieve a pin number. After
385 that, the subsystem passes it on to the pin control driver, so the driver
386 will get a pin number into its handled number range. Further it is also passed
387 the range ID value, so that the pin controller knows which range it should
390 Calling pinctrl_add_gpio_range from pinctrl driver is DEPRECATED. Please see
391 section 2.1 of Documentation/devicetree/bindings/gpio/gpio.txt on how to bind
392 pinctrl and gpio drivers.
398 These calls use the pinmux_* naming prefix. No other calls should use that
405 PINMUX, also known as padmux, ballmux, alternate functions or mission modes
406 is a way for chip vendors producing some kind of electrical packages to use
407 a certain physical pin (ball, pad, finger, etc) for multiple mutually exclusive
408 functions, depending on the application. By "application" in this context
409 we usually mean a way of soldering or wiring the package into an electronic
410 system, even though the framework makes it possible to also change the function
413 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath::
417 8 | o | o o o o o o o
419 7 | o | o o o o o o o
421 6 | o | o o o o o o o
423 5 | o | o | o o o o o o
425 4 o o o o o o | o | o
427 3 o o o o o o | o | o
429 2 o o o o o o | o | o
430 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
431 1 | o o | o o | o o | o | o |
432 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
434 This is not tetris. The game to think of is chess. Not all PGA/BGA packages
435 are chessboard-like, big ones have "holes" in some arrangement according to
436 different design patterns, but we're using this as a simple example. Of the
437 pins you see some will be taken by things like a few VCC and GND to feed power
438 to the chip, and quite a few will be taken by large ports like an external
439 memory interface. The remaining pins will often be subject to pin multiplexing.
441 The example 8x8 PGA package above will have pin numbers 0 through 63 assigned
442 to its physical pins. It will name the pins { A1, A2, A3 ... H6, H7, H8 } using
443 pinctrl_register_pins() and a suitable data set as shown earlier.
445 In this 8x8 BGA package the pins { A8, A7, A6, A5 } can be used as an SPI port
446 (these are four pins: CLK, RXD, TXD, FRM). In that case, pin B5 can be used as
447 some general-purpose GPIO pin. However, in another setting, pins { A5, B5 } can
448 be used as an I2C port (these are just two pins: SCL, SDA). Needless to say,
449 we cannot use the SPI port and I2C port at the same time. However in the inside
450 of the package the silicon performing the SPI logic can alternatively be routed
451 out on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 }.
453 On the bottom row at { A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, H1 } we have something
454 special - it's an external MMC bus that can be 2, 4 or 8 bits wide, and it will
455 consume 2, 4 or 8 pins respectively, so either { A1, B1 } are taken or
456 { A1, B1, C1, D1 } or all of them. If we use all 8 bits, we cannot use the SPI
457 port on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 } of course.
459 This way the silicon blocks present inside the chip can be multiplexed "muxed"
460 out on different pin ranges. Often contemporary SoC (systems on chip) will
461 contain several I2C, SPI, SDIO/MMC, etc silicon blocks that can be routed to
462 different pins by pinmux settings.
464 Since general-purpose I/O pins (GPIO) are typically always in shortage, it is
465 common to be able to use almost any pin as a GPIO pin if it is not currently
466 in use by some other I/O port.
472 The purpose of the pinmux functionality in the pin controller subsystem is to
473 abstract and provide pinmux settings to the devices you choose to instantiate
474 in your machine configuration. It is inspired by the clk, GPIO and regulator
475 subsystems, so devices will request their mux setting, but it's also possible
476 to request a single pin for e.g. GPIO.
480 - FUNCTIONS can be switched in and out by a driver residing with the pin
481 control subsystem in the drivers/pinctrl/* directory of the kernel. The
482 pin control driver knows the possible functions. In the example above you can
483 identify three pinmux functions, one for spi, one for i2c and one for mmc.
485 - FUNCTIONS are assumed to be enumerable from zero in a one-dimensional array.
486 In this case the array could be something like: { spi0, i2c0, mmc0 }
487 for the three available functions.
489 - FUNCTIONS have PIN GROUPS as defined on the generic level - so a certain
490 function is *always* associated with a certain set of pin groups, could
491 be just a single one, but could also be many. In the example above the
492 function i2c is associated with the pins { A5, B5 }, enumerated as
493 { 24, 25 } in the controller pin space.
495 The Function spi is associated with pin groups { A8, A7, A6, A5 }
496 and { G4, G3, G2, G1 }, which are enumerated as { 0, 8, 16, 24 } and
497 { 38, 46, 54, 62 } respectively.
499 Group names must be unique per pin controller, no two groups on the same
500 controller may have the same name.
502 - The combination of a FUNCTION and a PIN GROUP determine a certain function
503 for a certain set of pins. The knowledge of the functions and pin groups
504 and their machine-specific particulars are kept inside the pinmux driver,
505 from the outside only the enumerators are known, and the driver core can
508 - The name of a function with a certain selector (>= 0)
509 - A list of groups associated with a certain function
510 - That a certain group in that list to be activated for a certain function
512 As already described above, pin groups are in turn self-descriptive, so
513 the core will retrieve the actual pin range in a certain group from the
516 - FUNCTIONS and GROUPS on a certain PIN CONTROLLER are MAPPED to a certain
517 device by the board file, device tree or similar machine setup configuration
518 mechanism, similar to how regulators are connected to devices, usually by
519 name. Defining a pin controller, function and group thus uniquely identify
520 the set of pins to be used by a certain device. (If only one possible group
521 of pins is available for the function, no group name need to be supplied -
522 the core will simply select the first and only group available.)
524 In the example case we can define that this particular machine shall
525 use device spi0 with pinmux function fspi0 group gspi0 and i2c0 on function
526 fi2c0 group gi2c0, on the primary pin controller, we get mappings
530 {"map-spi0", spi0, pinctrl0, fspi0, gspi0},
531 {"map-i2c0", i2c0, pinctrl0, fi2c0, gi2c0}
534 Every map must be assigned a state name, pin controller, device and
535 function. The group is not compulsory - if it is omitted the first group
536 presented by the driver as applicable for the function will be selected,
537 which is useful for simple cases.
539 It is possible to map several groups to the same combination of device,
540 pin controller and function. This is for cases where a certain function on
541 a certain pin controller may use different sets of pins in different
544 - PINS for a certain FUNCTION using a certain PIN GROUP on a certain
545 PIN CONTROLLER are provided on a first-come first-serve basis, so if some
546 other device mux setting or GPIO pin request has already taken your physical
547 pin, you will be denied the use of it. To get (activate) a new setting, the
548 old one has to be put (deactivated) first.
550 Sometimes the documentation and hardware registers will be oriented around
551 pads (or "fingers") rather than pins - these are the soldering surfaces on the
552 silicon inside the package, and may or may not match the actual number of
553 pins/balls underneath the capsule. Pick some enumeration that makes sense to
554 you. Define enumerators only for the pins you can control if that makes sense.
558 We assume that the number of possible function maps to pin groups is limited by
559 the hardware. I.e. we assume that there is no system where any function can be
560 mapped to any pin, like in a phone exchange. So the available pin groups for
561 a certain function will be limited to a few choices (say up to eight or so),
562 not hundreds or any amount of choices. This is the characteristic we have found
563 by inspecting available pinmux hardware, and a necessary assumption since we
564 expect pinmux drivers to present *all* possible function vs pin group mappings
571 The pinmux core takes care of preventing conflicts on pins and calling
572 the pin controller driver to execute different settings.
574 It is the responsibility of the pinmux driver to impose further restrictions
575 (say for example infer electronic limitations due to load, etc.) to determine
576 whether or not the requested function can actually be allowed, and in case it
577 is possible to perform the requested mux setting, poke the hardware so that
580 Pinmux drivers are required to supply a few callback functions, some are
581 optional. Usually the set_mux() function is implemented, writing values into
582 some certain registers to activate a certain mux setting for a certain pin.
584 A simple driver for the above example will work by setting bits 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4
585 into some register named MUX to select a certain function with a certain
586 group of pins would work something like this::
588 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
589 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinmux.h>
593 const unsigned int *pins;
594 const unsigned num_pins;
597 static const unsigned spi0_0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
598 static const unsigned spi0_1_pins[] = { 38, 46, 54, 62 };
599 static const unsigned i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
600 static const unsigned mmc0_1_pins[] = { 56, 57 };
601 static const unsigned mmc0_2_pins[] = { 58, 59 };
602 static const unsigned mmc0_3_pins[] = { 60, 61, 62, 63 };
604 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
606 .name = "spi0_0_grp",
608 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_0_pins),
611 .name = "spi0_1_grp",
613 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_1_pins),
618 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
621 .name = "mmc0_1_grp",
623 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_1_pins),
626 .name = "mmc0_2_grp",
628 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_2_pins),
631 .name = "mmc0_3_grp",
633 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_3_pins),
638 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
640 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
643 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
646 return foo_groups[selector].name;
649 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
650 unsigned ** const pins,
651 unsigned * const num_pins)
653 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
654 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
658 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
659 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
660 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
661 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
664 struct foo_pmx_func {
666 const char * const *groups;
667 const unsigned num_groups;
670 static const char * const spi0_groups[] = { "spi0_0_grp", "spi0_1_grp" };
671 static const char * const i2c0_groups[] = { "i2c0_grp" };
672 static const char * const mmc0_groups[] = { "mmc0_1_grp", "mmc0_2_grp",
675 static const struct foo_pmx_func foo_functions[] = {
678 .groups = spi0_groups,
679 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_groups),
683 .groups = i2c0_groups,
684 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_groups),
688 .groups = mmc0_groups,
689 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_groups),
693 static int foo_get_functions_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
695 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_functions);
698 static const char *foo_get_fname(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector)
700 return foo_functions[selector].name;
703 static int foo_get_groups(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
704 const char * const **groups,
705 unsigned * const num_groups)
707 *groups = foo_functions[selector].groups;
708 *num_groups = foo_functions[selector].num_groups;
712 static int foo_set_mux(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
715 u8 regbit = (1 << selector + group);
717 writeb((readb(MUX)|regbit), MUX)
721 static struct pinmux_ops foo_pmxops = {
722 .get_functions_count = foo_get_functions_count,
723 .get_function_name = foo_get_fname,
724 .get_function_groups = foo_get_groups,
725 .set_mux = foo_set_mux,
729 /* Pinmux operations are handled by some pin controller */
730 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
732 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
733 .pmxops = &foo_pmxops,
736 In the example activating muxing 0 and 1 at the same time setting bits
737 0 and 1, uses one pin in common so they would collide.
739 The beauty of the pinmux subsystem is that since it keeps track of all
740 pins and who is using them, it will already have denied an impossible
741 request like that, so the driver does not need to worry about such
742 things - when it gets a selector passed in, the pinmux subsystem makes
743 sure no other device or GPIO assignment is already using the selected
744 pins. Thus bits 0 and 1 in the control register will never be set at the
747 All the above functions are mandatory to implement for a pinmux driver.
750 Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem
751 ===============================================
753 Note that the following implies that the use case is to use a certain pin
754 from the Linux kernel using the API in <linux/gpio.h> with gpio_request()
755 and similar functions. There are cases where you may be using something
756 that your datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but actually is just an electrical
757 configuration for a certain device. See the section below named
758 "GPIO mode pitfalls" for more details on this scenario.
760 The public pinmux API contains two functions named pinctrl_gpio_request()
761 and pinctrl_gpio_free(). These two functions shall *ONLY* be called from
762 gpiolib-based drivers as part of their gpio_request() and
763 gpio_free() semantics. Likewise the pinctrl_gpio_direction_[input|output]
764 shall only be called from within respective gpio_direction_[input|output]
765 gpiolib implementation.
767 NOTE that platforms and individual drivers shall *NOT* request GPIO pins to be
768 controlled e.g. muxed in. Instead, implement a proper gpiolib driver and have
769 that driver request proper muxing and other control for its pins.
771 The function list could become long, especially if you can convert every
772 individual pin into a GPIO pin independent of any other pins, and then try
773 the approach to define every pin as a function.
775 In this case, the function array would become 64 entries for each GPIO
776 setting and then the device functions.
778 For this reason there are two functions a pin control driver can implement
779 to enable only GPIO on an individual pin: .gpio_request_enable() and
780 .gpio_disable_free().
782 This function will pass in the affected GPIO range identified by the pin
783 controller core, so you know which GPIO pins are being affected by the request
786 If your driver needs to have an indication from the framework of whether the
787 GPIO pin shall be used for input or output you can implement the
788 .gpio_set_direction() function. As described this shall be called from the
789 gpiolib driver and the affected GPIO range, pin offset and desired direction
790 will be passed along to this function.
792 Alternatively to using these special functions, it is fully allowed to use
793 named functions for each GPIO pin, the pinctrl_gpio_request() will attempt to
794 obtain the function "gpioN" where "N" is the global GPIO pin number if no
795 special GPIO-handler is registered.
801 Due to the naming conventions used by hardware engineers, where "GPIO"
802 is taken to mean different things than what the kernel does, the developer
803 may be confused by a datasheet talking about a pin being possible to set
804 into "GPIO mode". It appears that what hardware engineers mean with
805 "GPIO mode" is not necessarily the use case that is implied in the kernel
806 interface <linux/gpio.h>: a pin that you grab from kernel code and then
807 either listen for input or drive high/low to assert/deassert some
810 Rather hardware engineers think that "GPIO mode" means that you can
811 software-control a few electrical properties of the pin that you would
812 not be able to control if the pin was in some other mode, such as muxed in
815 The GPIO portions of a pin and its relation to a certain pin controller
816 configuration and muxing logic can be constructed in several ways. Here
823 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
830 Here some electrical properties of the pin can be configured no matter
831 whether the pin is used for GPIO or not. If you multiplex a GPIO onto a
832 pin, you can also drive it high/low from "GPIO" registers.
833 Alternatively, the pin can be controlled by a certain peripheral, while
834 still applying desired pin config properties. GPIO functionality is thus
835 orthogonal to any other device using the pin.
837 In this arrangement the registers for the GPIO portions of the pin controller,
838 or the registers for the GPIO hardware module are likely to reside in a
839 separate memory range only intended for GPIO driving, and the register
840 range dealing with pin config and pin multiplexing get placed into a
841 different memory range and a separate section of the data sheet.
843 A flag "strict" in struct pinmux_ops is available to check and deny
844 simultaneous access to the same pin from GPIO and pin multiplexing
845 consumers on hardware of this type. The pinctrl driver should set this flag
855 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
862 In this arrangement, the GPIO functionality can always be enabled, such that
863 e.g. a GPIO input can be used to "spy" on the SPI/I2C/MMC signal while it is
864 pulsed out. It is likely possible to disrupt the traffic on the pin by doing
865 wrong things on the GPIO block, as it is never really disconnected. It is
866 possible that the GPIO, pin config and pin multiplex registers are placed into
867 the same memory range and the same section of the data sheet, although that
868 need not be the case.
870 In some pin controllers, although the physical pins are designed in the same
871 way as (B), the GPIO function still can't be enabled at the same time as the
872 peripheral functions. So again the "strict" flag should be set, denying
873 simultaneous activation by GPIO and other muxed in devices.
875 From a kernel point of view, however, these are different aspects of the
876 hardware and shall be put into different subsystems:
878 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control electrical
879 properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength should be
880 exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as "pin configuration" settings.
882 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control muxing of signals
883 from various other HW blocks (e.g. I2C, MMC, or GPIO) onto pins should
884 be exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as mux functions.
886 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control GPIO functionality
887 such as setting a GPIO's output value, reading a GPIO's input value, or
888 setting GPIO pin direction should be exposed through the GPIO subsystem,
889 and if they also support interrupt capabilities, through the irqchip
892 Depending on the exact HW register design, some functions exposed by the
893 GPIO subsystem may call into the pinctrl subsystem in order to
894 co-ordinate register settings across HW modules. In particular, this may
895 be needed for HW with separate GPIO and pin controller HW modules, where
896 e.g. GPIO direction is determined by a register in the pin controller HW
897 module rather than the GPIO HW module.
899 Electrical properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength
900 may be placed at some pin-specific register in all cases or as part
901 of the GPIO register in case (B) especially. This doesn't mean that such
902 properties necessarily pertain to what the Linux kernel calls "GPIO".
904 Example: a pin is usually muxed in to be used as a UART TX line. But during
905 system sleep, we need to put this pin into "GPIO mode" and ground it.
907 If you make a 1-to-1 map to the GPIO subsystem for this pin, you may start
908 to think that you need to come up with something really complex, that the
909 pin shall be used for UART TX and GPIO at the same time, that you will grab
910 a pin control handle and set it to a certain state to enable UART TX to be
911 muxed in, then twist it over to GPIO mode and use gpio_direction_output()
912 to drive it low during sleep, then mux it over to UART TX again when you
913 wake up and maybe even gpio_request/gpio_free as part of this cycle. This
914 all gets very complicated.
916 The solution is to not think that what the datasheet calls "GPIO mode"
917 has to be handled by the <linux/gpio.h> interface. Instead view this as
918 a certain pin config setting. Look in e.g. <linux/pinctrl/pinconf-generic.h>
919 and you find this in the documentation:
922 this will configure the pin in output, use argument
923 1 to indicate high level, argument 0 to indicate low level.
925 So it is perfectly possible to push a pin into "GPIO mode" and drive the
926 line low as part of the usual pin control map. So for example your UART
927 driver may look like this::
929 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
931 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
932 struct pinctrl_state *pins_default;
933 struct pinctrl_state *pins_sleep;
935 pins_default = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
936 pins_sleep = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP);
939 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_default);
941 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_sleep);
943 And your machine configuration may look like this:
944 --------------------------------------------------
948 static unsigned long uart_default_mode[] = {
949 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_DRIVE_PUSH_PULL, 0),
952 static unsigned long uart_sleep_mode[] = {
953 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT, 0),
956 static struct pinctrl_map pinmap[] __initdata = {
957 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
959 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
960 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_default_mode),
961 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
962 "u0_group", "gpio-mode"),
963 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
964 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_sleep_mode),
968 pinctrl_register_mappings(pinmap, ARRAY_SIZE(pinmap));
971 Here the pins we want to control are in the "u0_group" and there is some
972 function called "u0" that can be enabled on this group of pins, and then
973 everything is UART business as usual. But there is also some function
974 named "gpio-mode" that can be mapped onto the same pins to move them into
977 This will give the desired effect without any bogus interaction with the
978 GPIO subsystem. It is just an electrical configuration used by that device
979 when going to sleep, it might imply that the pin is set into something the
980 datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but that is not the point: it is still used
981 by that UART device to control the pins that pertain to that very UART
982 driver, putting them into modes needed by the UART. GPIO in the Linux
983 kernel sense are just some 1-bit line, and is a different use case.
985 How the registers are poked to attain the push or pull, and output low
986 configuration and the muxing of the "u0" or "gpio-mode" group onto these
987 pins is a question for the driver.
989 Some datasheets will be more helpful and refer to the "GPIO mode" as
990 "low power mode" rather than anything to do with GPIO. This often means
991 the same thing electrically speaking, but in this latter case the
992 software engineers will usually quickly identify that this is some
993 specific muxing or configuration rather than anything related to the GPIO
997 Board/machine configuration
998 ===========================
1000 Boards and machines define how a certain complete running system is put
1001 together, including how GPIOs and devices are muxed, how regulators are
1002 constrained and how the clock tree looks. Of course pinmux settings are also
1005 A pin controller configuration for a machine looks pretty much like a simple
1006 regulator configuration, so for the example array above we want to enable i2c
1007 and spi on the second function mapping::
1009 #include <linux/pinctrl/machine.h>
1011 static const struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initconst = {
1013 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1014 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1015 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1016 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1017 .data.mux.function = "spi0",
1020 .dev_name = "foo-i2c.0",
1021 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1022 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1023 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1024 .data.mux.function = "i2c0",
1027 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1028 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1029 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1030 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1031 .data.mux.function = "mmc0",
1035 The dev_name here matches to the unique device name that can be used to look
1036 up the device struct (just like with clockdev or regulators). The function name
1037 must match a function provided by the pinmux driver handling this pin range.
1039 As you can see we may have several pin controllers on the system and thus
1040 we need to specify which one of them contains the functions we wish to map.
1042 You register this pinmux mapping to the pinmux subsystem by simply::
1044 ret = pinctrl_register_mappings(mapping, ARRAY_SIZE(mapping));
1046 Since the above construct is pretty common there is a helper macro to make
1047 it even more compact which assumes you want to use pinctrl-foo and position
1048 0 for mapping, for example::
1050 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1051 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.o", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1052 "pinctrl-foo", NULL, "i2c0"),
1055 The mapping table may also contain pin configuration entries. It's common for
1056 each pin/group to have a number of configuration entries that affect it, so
1057 the table entries for configuration reference an array of config parameters
1058 and values. An example using the convenience macros is shown below::
1060 static unsigned long i2c_grp_configs[] = {
1065 static unsigned long i2c_pin_configs[] = {
1070 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1071 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1072 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", "i2c0"),
1073 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1074 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", i2c_grp_configs),
1075 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1076 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0scl", i2c_pin_configs),
1077 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1078 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0sda", i2c_pin_configs),
1081 Finally, some devices expect the mapping table to contain certain specific
1082 named states. When running on hardware that doesn't need any pin controller
1083 configuration, the mapping table must still contain those named states, in
1084 order to explicitly indicate that the states were provided and intended to
1085 be empty. Table entry macro PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE serves the purpose of defining
1086 a named state without causing any pin controller to be programmed::
1088 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1089 PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT),
1096 As it is possible to map a function to different groups of pins an optional
1097 .group can be specified like this::
1101 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1102 .name = "spi0-pos-A",
1103 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1104 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1106 .group = "spi0_0_grp",
1109 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1110 .name = "spi0-pos-B",
1111 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1112 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1114 .group = "spi0_1_grp",
1118 This example mapping is used to switch between two positions for spi0 at
1119 runtime, as described further below under the heading "Runtime pinmuxing".
1121 Further it is possible for one named state to affect the muxing of several
1122 groups of pins, say for example in the mmc0 example above, where you can
1123 additively expand the mmc0 bus from 2 to 4 to 8 pins. If we want to use all
1124 three groups for a total of 2+2+4 = 8 pins (for an 8-bit MMC bus as is the
1125 case), we define a mapping like this::
1129 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1131 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1132 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1134 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1137 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1139 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1140 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1142 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1145 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1147 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1148 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1150 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1153 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1155 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1156 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1158 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1161 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1163 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1164 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1166 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1169 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1171 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1172 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1174 .group = "mmc0_3_grp",
1178 The result of grabbing this mapping from the device with something like
1179 this (see next paragraph)::
1181 p = devm_pinctrl_get(dev);
1182 s = pinctrl_lookup_state(p, "8bit");
1183 ret = pinctrl_select_state(p, s);
1187 p = devm_pinctrl_get_select(dev, "8bit");
1189 Will be that you activate all the three bottom records in the mapping at
1190 once. Since they share the same name, pin controller device, function and
1191 device, and since we allow multiple groups to match to a single device, they
1192 all get selected, and they all get enabled and disable simultaneously by the
1196 Pin control requests from drivers
1197 =================================
1199 When a device driver is about to probe the device core will automatically
1200 attempt to issue pinctrl_get_select_default() on these devices.
1201 This way driver writers do not need to add any of the boilerplate code
1202 of the type found below. However when doing fine-grained state selection
1203 and not using the "default" state, you may have to do some device driver
1204 handling of the pinctrl handles and states.
1206 So if you just want to put the pins for a certain device into the default
1207 state and be done with it, there is nothing you need to do besides
1208 providing the proper mapping table. The device core will take care of
1211 Generally it is discouraged to let individual drivers get and enable pin
1212 control. So if possible, handle the pin control in platform code or some other
1213 place where you have access to all the affected struct device * pointers. In
1214 some cases where a driver needs to e.g. switch between different mux mappings
1215 at runtime this is not possible.
1217 A typical case is if a driver needs to switch bias of pins from normal
1218 operation and going to sleep, moving from the PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT to
1219 PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP at runtime, re-biasing or even re-muxing pins to save
1220 current in sleep mode.
1222 A driver may request a certain control state to be activated, usually just the
1223 default state like this::
1225 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1229 struct pinctrl_state *s;
1235 /* Allocate a state holder named "foo" etc */
1236 struct foo_state *foo = ...;
1238 foo->p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1239 if (IS_ERR(foo->p)) {
1240 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1241 return PTR_ERR(foo->p);
1244 foo->s = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
1245 if (IS_ERR(foo->s)) {
1246 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1250 ret = pinctrl_select_state(foo->s);
1252 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1257 This get/lookup/select/put sequence can just as well be handled by bus drivers
1258 if you don't want each and every driver to handle it and you know the
1259 arrangement on your bus.
1261 The semantics of the pinctrl APIs are:
1263 - pinctrl_get() is called in process context to obtain a handle to all pinctrl
1264 information for a given client device. It will allocate a struct from the
1265 kernel memory to hold the pinmux state. All mapping table parsing or similar
1266 slow operations take place within this API.
1268 - devm_pinctrl_get() is a variant of pinctrl_get() that causes pinctrl_put()
1269 to be called automatically on the retrieved pointer when the associated
1270 device is removed. It is recommended to use this function over plain
1273 - pinctrl_lookup_state() is called in process context to obtain a handle to a
1274 specific state for a client device. This operation may be slow, too.
1276 - pinctrl_select_state() programs pin controller hardware according to the
1277 definition of the state as given by the mapping table. In theory, this is a
1278 fast-path operation, since it only involved blasting some register settings
1279 into hardware. However, note that some pin controllers may have their
1280 registers on a slow/IRQ-based bus, so client devices should not assume they
1281 can call pinctrl_select_state() from non-blocking contexts.
1283 - pinctrl_put() frees all information associated with a pinctrl handle.
1285 - devm_pinctrl_put() is a variant of pinctrl_put() that may be used to
1286 explicitly destroy a pinctrl object returned by devm_pinctrl_get().
1287 However, use of this function will be rare, due to the automatic cleanup
1288 that will occur even without calling it.
1290 pinctrl_get() must be paired with a plain pinctrl_put().
1291 pinctrl_get() may not be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1292 devm_pinctrl_get() can optionally be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1293 devm_pinctrl_get() may not be paired with plain pinctrl_put().
1295 Usually the pin control core handled the get/put pair and call out to the
1296 device drivers bookkeeping operations, like checking available functions and
1297 the associated pins, whereas select_state pass on to the pin controller
1298 driver which takes care of activating and/or deactivating the mux setting by
1299 quickly poking some registers.
1301 The pins are allocated for your device when you issue the devm_pinctrl_get()
1302 call, after this you should be able to see this in the debugfs listing of all
1305 NOTE: the pinctrl system will return -EPROBE_DEFER if it cannot find the
1306 requested pinctrl handles, for example if the pinctrl driver has not yet
1307 registered. Thus make sure that the error path in your driver gracefully
1308 cleans up and is ready to retry the probing later in the startup process.
1311 Drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs
1312 ==========================================
1314 Again, it is discouraged to let drivers lookup and select pin control states
1315 themselves, but again sometimes this is unavoidable.
1317 So say that your driver is fetching its resources like this::
1319 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1320 #include <linux/gpio.h>
1322 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
1325 pinctrl = devm_pinctrl_get_select_default(&dev);
1326 gpio = devm_gpio_request(&dev, 14, "foo");
1328 Here we first request a certain pin state and then request GPIO 14 to be
1329 used. If you're using the subsystems orthogonally like this, you should
1330 nominally always get your pinctrl handle and select the desired pinctrl
1331 state BEFORE requesting the GPIO. This is a semantic convention to avoid
1332 situations that can be electrically unpleasant, you will certainly want to
1333 mux in and bias pins in a certain way before the GPIO subsystems starts to
1336 The above can be hidden: using the device core, the pinctrl core may be
1337 setting up the config and muxing for the pins right before the device is
1338 probing, nevertheless orthogonal to the GPIO subsystem.
1340 But there are also situations where it makes sense for the GPIO subsystem
1341 to communicate directly with the pinctrl subsystem, using the latter as a
1342 back-end. This is when the GPIO driver may call out to the functions
1343 described in the section "Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem"
1344 above. This only involves per-pin multiplexing, and will be completely
1345 hidden behind the gpio_*() function namespace. In this case, the driver
1346 need not interact with the pin control subsystem at all.
1348 If a pin control driver and a GPIO driver is dealing with the same pins
1349 and the use cases involve multiplexing, you MUST implement the pin controller
1350 as a back-end for the GPIO driver like this, unless your hardware design
1351 is such that the GPIO controller can override the pin controller's
1352 multiplexing state through hardware without the need to interact with the
1356 System pin control hogging
1357 ==========================
1359 Pin control map entries can be hogged by the core when the pin controller
1360 is registered. This means that the core will attempt to call pinctrl_get(),
1361 lookup_state() and select_state() on it immediately after the pin control
1362 device has been registered.
1364 This occurs for mapping table entries where the client device name is equal
1365 to the pin controller device name, and the state name is PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT::
1368 .dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1369 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1370 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1371 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1372 .function = "power_func",
1375 Since it may be common to request the core to hog a few always-applicable
1376 mux settings on the primary pin controller, there is a convenience macro for
1379 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP_HOG_DEFAULT("pinctrl-foo", NULL /* group */,
1382 This gives the exact same result as the above construction.
1388 It is possible to mux a certain function in and out at runtime, say to move
1389 an SPI port from one set of pins to another set of pins. Say for example for
1390 spi0 in the example above, we expose two different groups of pins for the same
1391 function, but with different named in the mapping as described under
1392 "Advanced mapping" above. So that for an SPI device, we have two states named
1393 "pos-A" and "pos-B".
1395 This snippet first initializes a state object for both groups (in foo_probe()),
1396 then muxes the function in the pins defined by group A, and finally muxes it in
1397 on the pins defined by group B::
1399 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1402 struct pinctrl_state *s1, *s2;
1407 p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1411 s1 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-A");
1415 s2 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-B");
1422 /* Enable on position A */
1423 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s1);
1429 /* Enable on position B */
1430 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s2);
1437 The above has to be done from process context. The reservation of the pins
1438 will be done when the state is activated, so in effect one specific pin
1439 can be used by different functions at different times on a running system.