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-ux500/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 Interaction with the GPIO subsystem
278 ===================================
280 The GPIO drivers may want to perform operations of various types on the same
281 physical pins that are also registered as pin controller pins.
283 First and foremost, the two subsystems can be used as completely orthogonal,
284 see the section named "pin control requests from drivers" and
285 "drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs" below for details. But in some
286 situations a cross-subsystem mapping between pins and GPIOs is needed.
288 Since the pin controller subsystem has its pinspace local to the pin controller
289 we need a mapping so that the pin control subsystem can figure out which pin
290 controller handles control of a certain GPIO pin. Since a single pin controller
291 may be muxing several GPIO ranges (typically SoCs that have one set of pins,
292 but internally several GPIO silicon blocks, each modelled as a struct
293 gpio_chip) any number of GPIO ranges can be added to a pin controller instance
296 struct gpio_chip chip_a;
297 struct gpio_chip chip_b;
299 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_a = {
308 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range_b = {
318 struct pinctrl_dev *pctl;
320 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_a);
321 pinctrl_add_gpio_range(pctl, &gpio_range_b);
324 So this complex system has one pin controller handling two different
325 GPIO chips. "chip a" has 16 pins and "chip b" has 8 pins. The "chip a" and
326 "chip b" have different .pin_base, which means a start pin number of the
329 The GPIO range of "chip a" starts from the GPIO base of 32 and actual
330 pin range also starts from 32. However "chip b" has different starting
331 offset for the GPIO range and pin range. The GPIO range of "chip b" starts
332 from GPIO number 48, while the pin range of "chip b" starts from 64.
334 We can convert a gpio number to actual pin number using this "pin_base".
335 They are mapped in the global GPIO pin space at:
338 - GPIO range : [32 .. 47]
339 - pin range : [32 .. 47]
341 - GPIO range : [48 .. 55]
342 - pin range : [64 .. 71]
344 The above examples assume the mapping between the GPIOs and pins is
345 linear. If the mapping is sparse or haphazard, an array of arbitrary pin
346 numbers can be encoded in the range like this::
348 static const unsigned range_pins[] = { 14, 1, 22, 17, 10, 8, 6, 2 };
350 static struct pinctrl_gpio_range gpio_range = {
355 .npins = ARRAY_SIZE(range_pins),
359 In this case the pin_base property will be ignored. If the name of a pin
360 group is known, the pins and npins elements of the above structure can be
361 initialised using the function pinctrl_get_group_pins(), e.g. for pin
364 pinctrl_get_group_pins(pctl, "foo", &gpio_range.pins,
367 When GPIO-specific functions in the pin control subsystem are called, these
368 ranges will be used to look up the appropriate pin controller by inspecting
369 and matching the pin to the pin ranges across all controllers. When a
370 pin controller handling the matching range is found, GPIO-specific functions
371 will be called on that specific pin controller.
373 For all functionalities dealing with pin biasing, pin muxing etc, the pin
374 controller subsystem will look up the corresponding pin number from the passed
375 in gpio number, and use the range's internals to retrieve a pin number. After
376 that, the subsystem passes it on to the pin control driver, so the driver
377 will get a pin number into its handled number range. Further it is also passed
378 the range ID value, so that the pin controller knows which range it should
381 Calling pinctrl_add_gpio_range from pinctrl driver is DEPRECATED. Please see
382 section 2.1 of Documentation/devicetree/bindings/gpio/gpio.txt on how to bind
383 pinctrl and gpio drivers.
389 These calls use the pinmux_* naming prefix. No other calls should use that
396 PINMUX, also known as padmux, ballmux, alternate functions or mission modes
397 is a way for chip vendors producing some kind of electrical packages to use
398 a certain physical pin (ball, pad, finger, etc) for multiple mutually exclusive
399 functions, depending on the application. By "application" in this context
400 we usually mean a way of soldering or wiring the package into an electronic
401 system, even though the framework makes it possible to also change the function
404 Here is an example of a PGA (Pin Grid Array) chip seen from underneath::
408 8 | o | o o o o o o o
410 7 | o | o o o o o o o
412 6 | o | o o o o o o o
414 5 | o | o | o o o o o o
416 4 o o o o o o | o | o
418 3 o o o o o o | o | o
420 2 o o o o o o | o | o
421 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
422 1 | o o | o o | o o | o | o |
423 +-------+-------+-------+---+---+
425 This is not tetris. The game to think of is chess. Not all PGA/BGA packages
426 are chessboard-like, big ones have "holes" in some arrangement according to
427 different design patterns, but we're using this as a simple example. Of the
428 pins you see some will be taken by things like a few VCC and GND to feed power
429 to the chip, and quite a few will be taken by large ports like an external
430 memory interface. The remaining pins will often be subject to pin multiplexing.
432 The example 8x8 PGA package above will have pin numbers 0 through 63 assigned
433 to its physical pins. It will name the pins { A1, A2, A3 ... H6, H7, H8 } using
434 pinctrl_register_pins() and a suitable data set as shown earlier.
436 In this 8x8 BGA package the pins { A8, A7, A6, A5 } can be used as an SPI port
437 (these are four pins: CLK, RXD, TXD, FRM). In that case, pin B5 can be used as
438 some general-purpose GPIO pin. However, in another setting, pins { A5, B5 } can
439 be used as an I2C port (these are just two pins: SCL, SDA). Needless to say,
440 we cannot use the SPI port and I2C port at the same time. However in the inside
441 of the package the silicon performing the SPI logic can alternatively be routed
442 out on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 }.
444 On the bottom row at { A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, F1, G1, H1 } we have something
445 special - it's an external MMC bus that can be 2, 4 or 8 bits wide, and it will
446 consume 2, 4 or 8 pins respectively, so either { A1, B1 } are taken or
447 { A1, B1, C1, D1 } or all of them. If we use all 8 bits, we cannot use the SPI
448 port on pins { G4, G3, G2, G1 } of course.
450 This way the silicon blocks present inside the chip can be multiplexed "muxed"
451 out on different pin ranges. Often contemporary SoC (systems on chip) will
452 contain several I2C, SPI, SDIO/MMC, etc silicon blocks that can be routed to
453 different pins by pinmux settings.
455 Since general-purpose I/O pins (GPIO) are typically always in shortage, it is
456 common to be able to use almost any pin as a GPIO pin if it is not currently
457 in use by some other I/O port.
463 The purpose of the pinmux functionality in the pin controller subsystem is to
464 abstract and provide pinmux settings to the devices you choose to instantiate
465 in your machine configuration. It is inspired by the clk, GPIO and regulator
466 subsystems, so devices will request their mux setting, but it's also possible
467 to request a single pin for e.g. GPIO.
471 - FUNCTIONS can be switched in and out by a driver residing with the pin
472 control subsystem in the drivers/pinctrl/* directory of the kernel. The
473 pin control driver knows the possible functions. In the example above you can
474 identify three pinmux functions, one for spi, one for i2c and one for mmc.
476 - FUNCTIONS are assumed to be enumerable from zero in a one-dimensional array.
477 In this case the array could be something like: { spi0, i2c0, mmc0 }
478 for the three available functions.
480 - FUNCTIONS have PIN GROUPS as defined on the generic level - so a certain
481 function is *always* associated with a certain set of pin groups, could
482 be just a single one, but could also be many. In the example above the
483 function i2c is associated with the pins { A5, B5 }, enumerated as
484 { 24, 25 } in the controller pin space.
486 The Function spi is associated with pin groups { A8, A7, A6, A5 }
487 and { G4, G3, G2, G1 }, which are enumerated as { 0, 8, 16, 24 } and
488 { 38, 46, 54, 62 } respectively.
490 Group names must be unique per pin controller, no two groups on the same
491 controller may have the same name.
493 - The combination of a FUNCTION and a PIN GROUP determine a certain function
494 for a certain set of pins. The knowledge of the functions and pin groups
495 and their machine-specific particulars are kept inside the pinmux driver,
496 from the outside only the enumerators are known, and the driver core can
499 - The name of a function with a certain selector (>= 0)
500 - A list of groups associated with a certain function
501 - That a certain group in that list to be activated for a certain function
503 As already described above, pin groups are in turn self-descriptive, so
504 the core will retrieve the actual pin range in a certain group from the
507 - FUNCTIONS and GROUPS on a certain PIN CONTROLLER are MAPPED to a certain
508 device by the board file, device tree or similar machine setup configuration
509 mechanism, similar to how regulators are connected to devices, usually by
510 name. Defining a pin controller, function and group thus uniquely identify
511 the set of pins to be used by a certain device. (If only one possible group
512 of pins is available for the function, no group name need to be supplied -
513 the core will simply select the first and only group available.)
515 In the example case we can define that this particular machine shall
516 use device spi0 with pinmux function fspi0 group gspi0 and i2c0 on function
517 fi2c0 group gi2c0, on the primary pin controller, we get mappings
521 {"map-spi0", spi0, pinctrl0, fspi0, gspi0},
522 {"map-i2c0", i2c0, pinctrl0, fi2c0, gi2c0}
525 Every map must be assigned a state name, pin controller, device and
526 function. The group is not compulsory - if it is omitted the first group
527 presented by the driver as applicable for the function will be selected,
528 which is useful for simple cases.
530 It is possible to map several groups to the same combination of device,
531 pin controller and function. This is for cases where a certain function on
532 a certain pin controller may use different sets of pins in different
535 - PINS for a certain FUNCTION using a certain PIN GROUP on a certain
536 PIN CONTROLLER are provided on a first-come first-serve basis, so if some
537 other device mux setting or GPIO pin request has already taken your physical
538 pin, you will be denied the use of it. To get (activate) a new setting, the
539 old one has to be put (deactivated) first.
541 Sometimes the documentation and hardware registers will be oriented around
542 pads (or "fingers") rather than pins - these are the soldering surfaces on the
543 silicon inside the package, and may or may not match the actual number of
544 pins/balls underneath the capsule. Pick some enumeration that makes sense to
545 you. Define enumerators only for the pins you can control if that makes sense.
549 We assume that the number of possible function maps to pin groups is limited by
550 the hardware. I.e. we assume that there is no system where any function can be
551 mapped to any pin, like in a phone exchange. So the available pin groups for
552 a certain function will be limited to a few choices (say up to eight or so),
553 not hundreds or any amount of choices. This is the characteristic we have found
554 by inspecting available pinmux hardware, and a necessary assumption since we
555 expect pinmux drivers to present *all* possible function vs pin group mappings
562 The pinmux core takes care of preventing conflicts on pins and calling
563 the pin controller driver to execute different settings.
565 It is the responsibility of the pinmux driver to impose further restrictions
566 (say for example infer electronic limitations due to load, etc.) to determine
567 whether or not the requested function can actually be allowed, and in case it
568 is possible to perform the requested mux setting, poke the hardware so that
571 Pinmux drivers are required to supply a few callback functions, some are
572 optional. Usually the set_mux() function is implemented, writing values into
573 some certain registers to activate a certain mux setting for a certain pin.
575 A simple driver for the above example will work by setting bits 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4
576 into some register named MUX to select a certain function with a certain
577 group of pins would work something like this::
579 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinctrl.h>
580 #include <linux/pinctrl/pinmux.h>
584 const unsigned int *pins;
585 const unsigned num_pins;
588 static const unsigned spi0_0_pins[] = { 0, 8, 16, 24 };
589 static const unsigned spi0_1_pins[] = { 38, 46, 54, 62 };
590 static const unsigned i2c0_pins[] = { 24, 25 };
591 static const unsigned mmc0_1_pins[] = { 56, 57 };
592 static const unsigned mmc0_2_pins[] = { 58, 59 };
593 static const unsigned mmc0_3_pins[] = { 60, 61, 62, 63 };
595 static const struct foo_group foo_groups[] = {
597 .name = "spi0_0_grp",
599 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_0_pins),
602 .name = "spi0_1_grp",
604 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_1_pins),
609 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_pins),
612 .name = "mmc0_1_grp",
614 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_1_pins),
617 .name = "mmc0_2_grp",
619 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_2_pins),
622 .name = "mmc0_3_grp",
624 .num_pins = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_3_pins),
629 static int foo_get_groups_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
631 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_groups);
634 static const char *foo_get_group_name(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev,
637 return foo_groups[selector].name;
640 static int foo_get_group_pins(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
641 const unsigned ** pins,
644 *pins = (unsigned *) foo_groups[selector].pins;
645 *num_pins = foo_groups[selector].num_pins;
649 static struct pinctrl_ops foo_pctrl_ops = {
650 .get_groups_count = foo_get_groups_count,
651 .get_group_name = foo_get_group_name,
652 .get_group_pins = foo_get_group_pins,
655 struct foo_pmx_func {
657 const char * const *groups;
658 const unsigned num_groups;
661 static const char * const spi0_groups[] = { "spi0_0_grp", "spi0_1_grp" };
662 static const char * const i2c0_groups[] = { "i2c0_grp" };
663 static const char * const mmc0_groups[] = { "mmc0_1_grp", "mmc0_2_grp",
666 static const struct foo_pmx_func foo_functions[] = {
669 .groups = spi0_groups,
670 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(spi0_groups),
674 .groups = i2c0_groups,
675 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(i2c0_groups),
679 .groups = mmc0_groups,
680 .num_groups = ARRAY_SIZE(mmc0_groups),
684 static int foo_get_functions_count(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev)
686 return ARRAY_SIZE(foo_functions);
689 static const char *foo_get_fname(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector)
691 return foo_functions[selector].name;
694 static int foo_get_groups(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
695 const char * const **groups,
696 unsigned * const num_groups)
698 *groups = foo_functions[selector].groups;
699 *num_groups = foo_functions[selector].num_groups;
703 static int foo_set_mux(struct pinctrl_dev *pctldev, unsigned selector,
706 u8 regbit = (1 << selector + group);
708 writeb((readb(MUX)|regbit), MUX);
712 static struct pinmux_ops foo_pmxops = {
713 .get_functions_count = foo_get_functions_count,
714 .get_function_name = foo_get_fname,
715 .get_function_groups = foo_get_groups,
716 .set_mux = foo_set_mux,
720 /* Pinmux operations are handled by some pin controller */
721 static struct pinctrl_desc foo_desc = {
723 .pctlops = &foo_pctrl_ops,
724 .pmxops = &foo_pmxops,
727 In the example activating muxing 0 and 1 at the same time setting bits
728 0 and 1, uses one pin in common so they would collide.
730 The beauty of the pinmux subsystem is that since it keeps track of all
731 pins and who is using them, it will already have denied an impossible
732 request like that, so the driver does not need to worry about such
733 things - when it gets a selector passed in, the pinmux subsystem makes
734 sure no other device or GPIO assignment is already using the selected
735 pins. Thus bits 0 and 1 in the control register will never be set at the
738 All the above functions are mandatory to implement for a pinmux driver.
741 Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem
742 ===============================================
744 Note that the following implies that the use case is to use a certain pin
745 from the Linux kernel using the API in <linux/gpio.h> with gpio_request()
746 and similar functions. There are cases where you may be using something
747 that your datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but actually is just an electrical
748 configuration for a certain device. See the section below named
749 "GPIO mode pitfalls" for more details on this scenario.
751 The public pinmux API contains two functions named pinctrl_gpio_request()
752 and pinctrl_gpio_free(). These two functions shall *ONLY* be called from
753 gpiolib-based drivers as part of their gpio_request() and
754 gpio_free() semantics. Likewise the pinctrl_gpio_direction_[input|output]
755 shall only be called from within respective gpio_direction_[input|output]
756 gpiolib implementation.
758 NOTE that platforms and individual drivers shall *NOT* request GPIO pins to be
759 controlled e.g. muxed in. Instead, implement a proper gpiolib driver and have
760 that driver request proper muxing and other control for its pins.
762 The function list could become long, especially if you can convert every
763 individual pin into a GPIO pin independent of any other pins, and then try
764 the approach to define every pin as a function.
766 In this case, the function array would become 64 entries for each GPIO
767 setting and then the device functions.
769 For this reason there are two functions a pin control driver can implement
770 to enable only GPIO on an individual pin: .gpio_request_enable() and
771 .gpio_disable_free().
773 This function will pass in the affected GPIO range identified by the pin
774 controller core, so you know which GPIO pins are being affected by the request
777 If your driver needs to have an indication from the framework of whether the
778 GPIO pin shall be used for input or output you can implement the
779 .gpio_set_direction() function. As described this shall be called from the
780 gpiolib driver and the affected GPIO range, pin offset and desired direction
781 will be passed along to this function.
783 Alternatively to using these special functions, it is fully allowed to use
784 named functions for each GPIO pin, the pinctrl_gpio_request() will attempt to
785 obtain the function "gpioN" where "N" is the global GPIO pin number if no
786 special GPIO-handler is registered.
792 Due to the naming conventions used by hardware engineers, where "GPIO"
793 is taken to mean different things than what the kernel does, the developer
794 may be confused by a datasheet talking about a pin being possible to set
795 into "GPIO mode". It appears that what hardware engineers mean with
796 "GPIO mode" is not necessarily the use case that is implied in the kernel
797 interface <linux/gpio.h>: a pin that you grab from kernel code and then
798 either listen for input or drive high/low to assert/deassert some
801 Rather hardware engineers think that "GPIO mode" means that you can
802 software-control a few electrical properties of the pin that you would
803 not be able to control if the pin was in some other mode, such as muxed in
806 The GPIO portions of a pin and its relation to a certain pin controller
807 configuration and muxing logic can be constructed in several ways. Here
814 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
821 Here some electrical properties of the pin can be configured no matter
822 whether the pin is used for GPIO or not. If you multiplex a GPIO onto a
823 pin, you can also drive it high/low from "GPIO" registers.
824 Alternatively, the pin can be controlled by a certain peripheral, while
825 still applying desired pin config properties. GPIO functionality is thus
826 orthogonal to any other device using the pin.
828 In this arrangement the registers for the GPIO portions of the pin controller,
829 or the registers for the GPIO hardware module are likely to reside in a
830 separate memory range only intended for GPIO driving, and the register
831 range dealing with pin config and pin multiplexing get placed into a
832 different memory range and a separate section of the data sheet.
834 A flag "strict" in struct pinmux_ops is available to check and deny
835 simultaneous access to the same pin from GPIO and pin multiplexing
836 consumers on hardware of this type. The pinctrl driver should set this flag
846 Physical pins --- pad --- pinmux -+- I2C
853 In this arrangement, the GPIO functionality can always be enabled, such that
854 e.g. a GPIO input can be used to "spy" on the SPI/I2C/MMC signal while it is
855 pulsed out. It is likely possible to disrupt the traffic on the pin by doing
856 wrong things on the GPIO block, as it is never really disconnected. It is
857 possible that the GPIO, pin config and pin multiplex registers are placed into
858 the same memory range and the same section of the data sheet, although that
859 need not be the case.
861 In some pin controllers, although the physical pins are designed in the same
862 way as (B), the GPIO function still can't be enabled at the same time as the
863 peripheral functions. So again the "strict" flag should be set, denying
864 simultaneous activation by GPIO and other muxed in devices.
866 From a kernel point of view, however, these are different aspects of the
867 hardware and shall be put into different subsystems:
869 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control electrical
870 properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength should be
871 exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as "pin configuration" settings.
873 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control muxing of signals
874 from various other HW blocks (e.g. I2C, MMC, or GPIO) onto pins should
875 be exposed through the pinctrl subsystem, as mux functions.
877 - Registers (or fields within registers) that control GPIO functionality
878 such as setting a GPIO's output value, reading a GPIO's input value, or
879 setting GPIO pin direction should be exposed through the GPIO subsystem,
880 and if they also support interrupt capabilities, through the irqchip
883 Depending on the exact HW register design, some functions exposed by the
884 GPIO subsystem may call into the pinctrl subsystem in order to
885 co-ordinate register settings across HW modules. In particular, this may
886 be needed for HW with separate GPIO and pin controller HW modules, where
887 e.g. GPIO direction is determined by a register in the pin controller HW
888 module rather than the GPIO HW module.
890 Electrical properties of the pin such as biasing and drive strength
891 may be placed at some pin-specific register in all cases or as part
892 of the GPIO register in case (B) especially. This doesn't mean that such
893 properties necessarily pertain to what the Linux kernel calls "GPIO".
895 Example: a pin is usually muxed in to be used as a UART TX line. But during
896 system sleep, we need to put this pin into "GPIO mode" and ground it.
898 If you make a 1-to-1 map to the GPIO subsystem for this pin, you may start
899 to think that you need to come up with something really complex, that the
900 pin shall be used for UART TX and GPIO at the same time, that you will grab
901 a pin control handle and set it to a certain state to enable UART TX to be
902 muxed in, then twist it over to GPIO mode and use gpio_direction_output()
903 to drive it low during sleep, then mux it over to UART TX again when you
904 wake up and maybe even gpio_request/gpio_free as part of this cycle. This
905 all gets very complicated.
907 The solution is to not think that what the datasheet calls "GPIO mode"
908 has to be handled by the <linux/gpio.h> interface. Instead view this as
909 a certain pin config setting. Look in e.g. <linux/pinctrl/pinconf-generic.h>
910 and you find this in the documentation:
913 this will configure the pin in output, use argument
914 1 to indicate high level, argument 0 to indicate low level.
916 So it is perfectly possible to push a pin into "GPIO mode" and drive the
917 line low as part of the usual pin control map. So for example your UART
918 driver may look like this::
920 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
922 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
923 struct pinctrl_state *pins_default;
924 struct pinctrl_state *pins_sleep;
926 pins_default = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
927 pins_sleep = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP);
930 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_default);
932 retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_sleep);
934 And your machine configuration may look like this:
935 --------------------------------------------------
939 static unsigned long uart_default_mode[] = {
940 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_DRIVE_PUSH_PULL, 0),
943 static unsigned long uart_sleep_mode[] = {
944 PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT, 0),
947 static struct pinctrl_map pinmap[] __initdata = {
948 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
950 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
951 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_default_mode),
952 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
953 "u0_group", "gpio-mode"),
954 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
955 "UART_TX_PIN", uart_sleep_mode),
959 pinctrl_register_mappings(pinmap, ARRAY_SIZE(pinmap));
962 Here the pins we want to control are in the "u0_group" and there is some
963 function called "u0" that can be enabled on this group of pins, and then
964 everything is UART business as usual. But there is also some function
965 named "gpio-mode" that can be mapped onto the same pins to move them into
968 This will give the desired effect without any bogus interaction with the
969 GPIO subsystem. It is just an electrical configuration used by that device
970 when going to sleep, it might imply that the pin is set into something the
971 datasheet calls "GPIO mode", but that is not the point: it is still used
972 by that UART device to control the pins that pertain to that very UART
973 driver, putting them into modes needed by the UART. GPIO in the Linux
974 kernel sense are just some 1-bit line, and is a different use case.
976 How the registers are poked to attain the push or pull, and output low
977 configuration and the muxing of the "u0" or "gpio-mode" group onto these
978 pins is a question for the driver.
980 Some datasheets will be more helpful and refer to the "GPIO mode" as
981 "low power mode" rather than anything to do with GPIO. This often means
982 the same thing electrically speaking, but in this latter case the
983 software engineers will usually quickly identify that this is some
984 specific muxing or configuration rather than anything related to the GPIO
988 Board/machine configuration
989 ===========================
991 Boards and machines define how a certain complete running system is put
992 together, including how GPIOs and devices are muxed, how regulators are
993 constrained and how the clock tree looks. Of course pinmux settings are also
996 A pin controller configuration for a machine looks pretty much like a simple
997 regulator configuration, so for the example array above we want to enable i2c
998 and spi on the second function mapping::
1000 #include <linux/pinctrl/machine.h>
1002 static const struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initconst = {
1004 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1005 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1006 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1007 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1008 .data.mux.function = "spi0",
1011 .dev_name = "foo-i2c.0",
1012 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1013 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1014 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1015 .data.mux.function = "i2c0",
1018 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1019 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1020 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1021 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1022 .data.mux.function = "mmc0",
1026 The dev_name here matches to the unique device name that can be used to look
1027 up the device struct (just like with clockdev or regulators). The function name
1028 must match a function provided by the pinmux driver handling this pin range.
1030 As you can see we may have several pin controllers on the system and thus
1031 we need to specify which one of them contains the functions we wish to map.
1033 You register this pinmux mapping to the pinmux subsystem by simply::
1035 ret = pinctrl_register_mappings(mapping, ARRAY_SIZE(mapping));
1037 Since the above construct is pretty common there is a helper macro to make
1038 it even more compact which assumes you want to use pinctrl-foo and position
1039 0 for mapping, for example::
1041 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1042 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.o", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1043 "pinctrl-foo", NULL, "i2c0"),
1046 The mapping table may also contain pin configuration entries. It's common for
1047 each pin/group to have a number of configuration entries that affect it, so
1048 the table entries for configuration reference an array of config parameters
1049 and values. An example using the convenience macros is shown below::
1051 static unsigned long i2c_grp_configs[] = {
1056 static unsigned long i2c_pin_configs[] = {
1061 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1062 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1063 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", "i2c0"),
1064 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_GROUP("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1065 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0", i2c_grp_configs),
1066 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1067 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0scl", i2c_pin_configs),
1068 PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1069 "pinctrl-foo", "i2c0sda", i2c_pin_configs),
1072 Finally, some devices expect the mapping table to contain certain specific
1073 named states. When running on hardware that doesn't need any pin controller
1074 configuration, the mapping table must still contain those named states, in
1075 order to explicitly indicate that the states were provided and intended to
1076 be empty. Table entry macro PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE serves the purpose of defining
1077 a named state without causing any pin controller to be programmed::
1079 static struct pinctrl_map mapping[] __initdata = {
1080 PIN_MAP_DUMMY_STATE("foo-i2c.0", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT),
1087 As it is possible to map a function to different groups of pins an optional
1088 .group can be specified like this::
1092 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1093 .name = "spi0-pos-A",
1094 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1095 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1097 .group = "spi0_0_grp",
1100 .dev_name = "foo-spi.0",
1101 .name = "spi0-pos-B",
1102 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1103 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1105 .group = "spi0_1_grp",
1109 This example mapping is used to switch between two positions for spi0 at
1110 runtime, as described further below under the heading "Runtime pinmuxing".
1112 Further it is possible for one named state to affect the muxing of several
1113 groups of pins, say for example in the mmc0 example above, where you can
1114 additively expand the mmc0 bus from 2 to 4 to 8 pins. If we want to use all
1115 three groups for a total of 2+2+4 = 8 pins (for an 8-bit MMC bus as is the
1116 case), we define a mapping like this::
1120 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1122 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1123 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1125 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1128 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1130 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1131 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1133 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1136 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1138 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1139 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1141 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1144 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1146 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1147 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1149 .group = "mmc0_1_grp",
1152 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1154 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1155 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1157 .group = "mmc0_2_grp",
1160 .dev_name = "foo-mmc.0",
1162 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1163 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1165 .group = "mmc0_3_grp",
1169 The result of grabbing this mapping from the device with something like
1170 this (see next paragraph)::
1172 p = devm_pinctrl_get(dev);
1173 s = pinctrl_lookup_state(p, "8bit");
1174 ret = pinctrl_select_state(p, s);
1178 p = devm_pinctrl_get_select(dev, "8bit");
1180 Will be that you activate all the three bottom records in the mapping at
1181 once. Since they share the same name, pin controller device, function and
1182 device, and since we allow multiple groups to match to a single device, they
1183 all get selected, and they all get enabled and disable simultaneously by the
1187 Pin control requests from drivers
1188 =================================
1190 When a device driver is about to probe the device core will automatically
1191 attempt to issue pinctrl_get_select_default() on these devices.
1192 This way driver writers do not need to add any of the boilerplate code
1193 of the type found below. However when doing fine-grained state selection
1194 and not using the "default" state, you may have to do some device driver
1195 handling of the pinctrl handles and states.
1197 So if you just want to put the pins for a certain device into the default
1198 state and be done with it, there is nothing you need to do besides
1199 providing the proper mapping table. The device core will take care of
1202 Generally it is discouraged to let individual drivers get and enable pin
1203 control. So if possible, handle the pin control in platform code or some other
1204 place where you have access to all the affected struct device * pointers. In
1205 some cases where a driver needs to e.g. switch between different mux mappings
1206 at runtime this is not possible.
1208 A typical case is if a driver needs to switch bias of pins from normal
1209 operation and going to sleep, moving from the PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT to
1210 PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP at runtime, re-biasing or even re-muxing pins to save
1211 current in sleep mode.
1213 A driver may request a certain control state to be activated, usually just the
1214 default state like this::
1216 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1220 struct pinctrl_state *s;
1226 /* Allocate a state holder named "foo" etc */
1227 struct foo_state *foo = ...;
1229 foo->p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1230 if (IS_ERR(foo->p)) {
1231 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1232 return PTR_ERR(foo->p);
1235 foo->s = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
1236 if (IS_ERR(foo->s)) {
1237 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1238 return PTR_ERR(foo->s);
1241 ret = pinctrl_select_state(foo->s);
1243 /* FIXME: clean up "foo" here */
1248 This get/lookup/select/put sequence can just as well be handled by bus drivers
1249 if you don't want each and every driver to handle it and you know the
1250 arrangement on your bus.
1252 The semantics of the pinctrl APIs are:
1254 - pinctrl_get() is called in process context to obtain a handle to all pinctrl
1255 information for a given client device. It will allocate a struct from the
1256 kernel memory to hold the pinmux state. All mapping table parsing or similar
1257 slow operations take place within this API.
1259 - devm_pinctrl_get() is a variant of pinctrl_get() that causes pinctrl_put()
1260 to be called automatically on the retrieved pointer when the associated
1261 device is removed. It is recommended to use this function over plain
1264 - pinctrl_lookup_state() is called in process context to obtain a handle to a
1265 specific state for a client device. This operation may be slow, too.
1267 - pinctrl_select_state() programs pin controller hardware according to the
1268 definition of the state as given by the mapping table. In theory, this is a
1269 fast-path operation, since it only involved blasting some register settings
1270 into hardware. However, note that some pin controllers may have their
1271 registers on a slow/IRQ-based bus, so client devices should not assume they
1272 can call pinctrl_select_state() from non-blocking contexts.
1274 - pinctrl_put() frees all information associated with a pinctrl handle.
1276 - devm_pinctrl_put() is a variant of pinctrl_put() that may be used to
1277 explicitly destroy a pinctrl object returned by devm_pinctrl_get().
1278 However, use of this function will be rare, due to the automatic cleanup
1279 that will occur even without calling it.
1281 pinctrl_get() must be paired with a plain pinctrl_put().
1282 pinctrl_get() may not be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1283 devm_pinctrl_get() can optionally be paired with devm_pinctrl_put().
1284 devm_pinctrl_get() may not be paired with plain pinctrl_put().
1286 Usually the pin control core handled the get/put pair and call out to the
1287 device drivers bookkeeping operations, like checking available functions and
1288 the associated pins, whereas select_state pass on to the pin controller
1289 driver which takes care of activating and/or deactivating the mux setting by
1290 quickly poking some registers.
1292 The pins are allocated for your device when you issue the devm_pinctrl_get()
1293 call, after this you should be able to see this in the debugfs listing of all
1296 NOTE: the pinctrl system will return -EPROBE_DEFER if it cannot find the
1297 requested pinctrl handles, for example if the pinctrl driver has not yet
1298 registered. Thus make sure that the error path in your driver gracefully
1299 cleans up and is ready to retry the probing later in the startup process.
1302 Drivers needing both pin control and GPIOs
1303 ==========================================
1305 Again, it is discouraged to let drivers lookup and select pin control states
1306 themselves, but again sometimes this is unavoidable.
1308 So say that your driver is fetching its resources like this::
1310 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1311 #include <linux/gpio.h>
1313 struct pinctrl *pinctrl;
1316 pinctrl = devm_pinctrl_get_select_default(&dev);
1317 gpio = devm_gpio_request(&dev, 14, "foo");
1319 Here we first request a certain pin state and then request GPIO 14 to be
1320 used. If you're using the subsystems orthogonally like this, you should
1321 nominally always get your pinctrl handle and select the desired pinctrl
1322 state BEFORE requesting the GPIO. This is a semantic convention to avoid
1323 situations that can be electrically unpleasant, you will certainly want to
1324 mux in and bias pins in a certain way before the GPIO subsystems starts to
1327 The above can be hidden: using the device core, the pinctrl core may be
1328 setting up the config and muxing for the pins right before the device is
1329 probing, nevertheless orthogonal to the GPIO subsystem.
1331 But there are also situations where it makes sense for the GPIO subsystem
1332 to communicate directly with the pinctrl subsystem, using the latter as a
1333 back-end. This is when the GPIO driver may call out to the functions
1334 described in the section "Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem"
1335 above. This only involves per-pin multiplexing, and will be completely
1336 hidden behind the gpio_*() function namespace. In this case, the driver
1337 need not interact with the pin control subsystem at all.
1339 If a pin control driver and a GPIO driver is dealing with the same pins
1340 and the use cases involve multiplexing, you MUST implement the pin controller
1341 as a back-end for the GPIO driver like this, unless your hardware design
1342 is such that the GPIO controller can override the pin controller's
1343 multiplexing state through hardware without the need to interact with the
1347 System pin control hogging
1348 ==========================
1350 Pin control map entries can be hogged by the core when the pin controller
1351 is registered. This means that the core will attempt to call pinctrl_get(),
1352 lookup_state() and select_state() on it immediately after the pin control
1353 device has been registered.
1355 This occurs for mapping table entries where the client device name is equal
1356 to the pin controller device name, and the state name is PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT::
1359 .dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1360 .name = PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT,
1361 .type = PIN_MAP_TYPE_MUX_GROUP,
1362 .ctrl_dev_name = "pinctrl-foo",
1363 .function = "power_func",
1366 Since it may be common to request the core to hog a few always-applicable
1367 mux settings on the primary pin controller, there is a convenience macro for
1370 PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP_HOG_DEFAULT("pinctrl-foo", NULL /* group */,
1373 This gives the exact same result as the above construction.
1379 It is possible to mux a certain function in and out at runtime, say to move
1380 an SPI port from one set of pins to another set of pins. Say for example for
1381 spi0 in the example above, we expose two different groups of pins for the same
1382 function, but with different named in the mapping as described under
1383 "Advanced mapping" above. So that for an SPI device, we have two states named
1384 "pos-A" and "pos-B".
1386 This snippet first initializes a state object for both groups (in foo_probe()),
1387 then muxes the function in the pins defined by group A, and finally muxes it in
1388 on the pins defined by group B::
1390 #include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
1393 struct pinctrl_state *s1, *s2;
1398 p = devm_pinctrl_get(&device);
1402 s1 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-A");
1406 s2 = pinctrl_lookup_state(foo->p, "pos-B");
1413 /* Enable on position A */
1414 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s1);
1420 /* Enable on position B */
1421 ret = pinctrl_select_state(s2);
1428 The above has to be done from process context. The reservation of the pins
1429 will be done when the state is activated, so in effect one specific pin
1430 can be used by different functions at different times on a running system.
1435 These files are created in ``/sys/kernel/debug/pinctrl``:
1437 - ``pinctrl-devices``: prints each pin controller device along with columns to
1438 indicate support for pinmux and pinconf
1440 - ``pinctrl-handles``: prints each configured pin controller handle and the
1441 corresponding pinmux maps
1443 - ``pinctrl-maps``: print all pinctrl maps
1445 A sub-directory is created inside of ``/sys/kernel/debug/pinctrl`` for each pin
1446 controller device containing these files:
1448 - ``pins``: prints a line for each pin registered on the pin controller. The
1449 pinctrl driver may add additional information such as register contents.
1451 - ``gpio-ranges``: print ranges that map gpio lines to pins on the controller
1453 - ``pingroups``: print all pin groups registered on the pin controller
1455 - ``pinconf-pins``: print pin config settings for each pin
1457 - ``pinconf-groups``: print pin config settings per pin group
1459 - ``pinmux-functions``: print each pin function along with the pin groups that
1460 map to the pin function
1462 - ``pinmux-pins``: iterate through all pins and print mux owner, gpio owner
1463 and if the pin is a hog
1465 - ``pinmux-select``: write to this file to activate a pin function for a group::
1467 echo "<group-name function-name>" > pinmux-select